


Volume 2.5: Thunder Before the Storm

by the_never_was



Series: Athena [3]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Action, Adventure & Romance, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon/Non-Canon events, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Gen, Humor, Mild AU with Vakarian family, turian culture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2019-06-08 11:58:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 47,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15242907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_never_was/pseuds/the_never_was
Summary: Stuck in limbo after success against the Collectors, Shepard finds herself jumping from stone to stone with opportunities great and terrible that will change her life and those of everyone else in the galaxy once again. Time keeps moving, love keeps growing, and philosophy is challenged with the thunder before the Reapers' coming storm.





	1. Considerations (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> Volume Two: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12183822/chapters/27659259  
> Welcome to Vol 2.5, Game 2 DLC with some extra romantic goodies and set up for opening events of Mass Effect 3. It is continued writing of a personal playthrough with a pragmatic, _mostly_ Paragon FemShep. 
> 
> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.

 

  
  


 

Fourteen days of round the clock work. Fourteen days of parts inspection, armor installation, and barrier checks. Fourteen days of minor repair and restock, of EDI's recommendations and processing for hiccoughs. Fourteen days in the grand pisshole of Omega that she was getting rapidly tired of even _in_ her gratitude to its self-professed badass asari Queen.

Merchants had attempted to rack up prices for minor necessities on day two, but one tired, ragged, and eye-twitching look from Shepard had fixed that alongside Garrus's openly carried rifle and Jack's challenging sneer. Pickpockets had given them wide berths once Aria had been seen inspecting progress on day six. End of week one, an idiot of a human had asked Samara for a dance in Afterlife while they took a break to _try_ and relax, and said idiot found himself flat on his back with a solid punch from _Zaeed_ , of all people, with a roughly voiced grunt of _learn some respect_.

Dozens of other inane interactions and repeated _guard rotations_ at the _SR2_ 's docking bay to deter sneaky salvagers quickly proved to Shepard and the rest that day fourteen couldn't come fast _enough—_ not just for them all to be away from Omega as many were still processing very recent psychological trauma, but for some to make decisions about their next steps. Shepard just wanted them all to make their own decisions without her as a consideration because they'd survived enough in her eyes already. Enough eyes strayed to the elevator in fear when repair echoes banged about or workers moved up and down through the days for Shepard to understand.

The night of day thirteen, she told them all, Cerberus crew and team, about the Illusive Man's offer.

People crowded in the mess as two of Aria's personal guards watched the docking tube. Her team stood among the Collector base survivors, many of whom moved silently about to sit.

“Okay, listen up. I know the silent question on everyone's minds this entire repair job has been what's next on the agenda, and I've got some options since we got a message a couple nights ago,” she said, stepping into the center of the mess and waving a datapad in her hand. “First, are we all accounted for here?”

“Yes, Commander,” Miranda replied from her left, standing at attention with respect.

“Good. There's been an offer on the table from the Illusive Man. A project called Overlord run through a research base seems to have had some trouble. Beyond some odd radio silence, we have no news yet on what's going down,” Shepard began, pacing slightly and doing _much_ better after nearly two full weeks of Mordin's spiffy knee brace. “He's agreed to let us decide if we accept, and that includes Cerberus ship crew if they wish to stay on for it. Payments will be rendered, etc., but here's the thing he doesn't seem to get. We've all had a _hell_ of a time this past month—past _several_ months—and some of us are _done_. So...I want you all to take tonight to yourselves. Think, _seriously_ think, if you are prepared for this if we accept it. Consider if you need _out_.”

Glances were exchanged. Shaky sighs exhaled from more than a few.

And in the middle of the quiet uncertainty, Shepard stood calm and relaxed, indicating no pressure as they whispered softly.

She gazed over them, green eyes understanding and firmly compassionate. “There is no shame in taking reassignment, quitting, or going your merry way, folks. None. We did what we set out to do. We accomplished our task. And if that's what you signed up for and need to walk away, then that is your damn right to do so. You've done all that was asked of you. You are _heroes_ to this galaxy, whether they know it or not. This mission, if we agree to it, is something else. All I ask if you are reassigning or leaving is that you let me know for accountability or replacement purposes. No questions asked as to _why_ you're going wherever you are. I can't spare fuel at the moment to take you all home, but I can help organize ways to get you where you need to go. Maybe a quick pass to the Citadel to get you all sorted out.

“I am _grateful_ for your service, your strength, and your aid in getting the ship back to rights. She's carried us well just as you have kept us all going together. And that, people, matters most to me to know, and that is what I will take away from this run to remember. For those interested in accepting this mission, I'd like a head count from Miranda by early tomorrow morning. I'll give you through the night to think about it, talk with someone, and make a decision. If you'd like to talk to _me_ , you may do so. My cabin will be open first come, first serve style until probably late through the night. This goes for _anyone_ , crew, team, or AI.”

EDI's soft voice sifted through the comms in the mess as she quietly murmured, “Thank you, Commander.”

“Welcome, EDI,” Shepard nodded, glancing about for a camera location she knew. Her eyes rested over faces she'd come to know well, over personalities loud and small, over people who had fought at her side and those who had kept her second chance at life functioning. Quietly she exhaled through her nose. “Any questions?”

“Any more info on mission parameters?” Garrus questioned to her right, tone open and supportive with the accompanying subharmonics for her.

Shepard gave him a small smile for it, then schooled her face serious again. “As of right now not much. Possible overtaking of the station. There's been an alert for help after staff seemed to be dealing with an internal problem. We're unsure at this point if there's an environmental problem or an external one as well, as the location is, apparently, quite _hot_ with minor volcanic activity nearby.”

“So maybe no enemies,” Grunt mumbled at Garrus's side. “ _Boring_ , Shepard.”

She snickered at that icy-eyed shrug. “Could be. But I doubt it, not with him extending us the job over others. Won't be as engaging as the Collectors, I imagine.”

“Bounty offer?” Zaeed questioned, sounding just as on the fence.

“Limited equal pay for all, bonuses for saving tech, research, and any staff.”

The old merc hummed as he considered her words.

Joker huffed and crossed his arms where he sat at one end of the tables. “You wanna get shot again, Shepard, that's on you. But I know you _can't_ do it without _me_.”

The grin stole across her reddened lips. “Nope, Joker. I can't. But you can still leave, you know.”

“And miss out on messing with EDI and hauling you around? Nah.”

“ _Joker_ ,” the AI chastised over the comms.

“I'll take that as a compliment,” Shepard teased, snorted, and took one last glance about the many unsure faces. “At any rate if you _do_ have mission questions, you can ask them privately, too. Those staying will take vote in the morning on shipping off for this Overlord business.”

“And say we all vote nay. That mean we're taking this bitch pirate, Shepard?” Jack questioned, glint in her dark eyes. Her smirk was proud and well earned after all of _her_ help the past run. “Still the way to go, you know. Stop doing Cerberus favors, and let's _do it_.”

Miranda angled her legs, shifted her weight, and rolled her black hair over her shoulders across the room from the intense, tattooed biotic. “Though I've come to...not _entirely_ disagree with you on some things now, the ship's ownership is still in Cerberus control, and we would be tracked and disabled once we ran out of money or fuel.”

Jack rolled her eyes and held her glowing fist up. “Duh, Cheerleader, that's the point of _pirating_. We whip some mercs or other pirates around, take their shit, and make profit. Fight any people sent after us. Steal another ship, hell why not.”

“Jack, if you wanna go pirate, there's plenty of opportunity to start here off Omega. I'm dealing with the Illusive Man as I have to in order to try and _keep_ this ship if possible,” Shepard said with a shake of her red hair.

One hand raised up near the corner by the battery's entrance as Tali straightened herself by the kitchen counter. “I do have a question.”

“Name it, Tali'zorah.”

“What comes...after? Say we _do_ agree to this mission. What comes after, Shepard?”

All eyes zoomed back onto the Commander with curiosity at organic comparable FTL speed.

Shepard rubbed her eyes with her forefinger and thumb. “I'll be honest, Tali, I don't know. Not yet. I need to speak with Anderson if we go and accomplish this to figure out what's going on with Alliance and myself. Clear that air now. Eventually crew here will all go our own way, and we know that deep down. This offer just...extends that time out a little longer, should people want to stick around yet.”

Legion took a step forward from Samara's side near the medbay door, its little brows wiggling as its programs made a decision to speak. “Shepard-Commander, this unit would like to stay longer if possible for furthering its intended goal.”

Her head swung to the side to view the geth that had saved her life more than once, and she smiled. “Sure, Legion. You pulled your weight. Fine by me.”

“Commander, I'd like to make my services available tonight for people as well. I cannot promise I will stay, personally, for anything after tomorrow, but I will do what I can for everyone until then,” Kelly Chambers piped up, her once bubbly voice now more muted since her recovery from the Collector base.

Shepard didn't speak. She just gave the brave survivor a gentle nod of acceptance. Kelly had been instrumental in helping some of the worst cases of trauma in the first 48 hours of docking, despite Kelly _herself_ being one of those cases. Chambers' true potential showed itself in those first days especially as she battled her own demons while aiding the others with theirs, and Shepard ran with her recommendations for quiet spaces from each day's work zones on the ship. Card games were common as a result as was some mild drinking, but Shepard drew the line at anyone trying to blitz themselves into a stupor.

Miranda took in the more somber atmosphere the room had fallen back into being; she and Shepard both noticed how even Dr. Chakwas seemed to grow a bit vacant sitting next to Joker silently.

Shepard coughed slightly under her breath and wrapped up the meeting at Lawson's subtle expression of concern, stating, “EDI, Kelly, and I talked a few days ago about continued help resources for anyone wanting them leaving the ship. EDI will forward you her findings with Kelly's approval on therapy groups, services, and such. This information will be available to _anyone_ , not just Cerberus staff relocating. You gave to us. Let us give back to you.”

“You did, Commander,” Gabby Daniels whispered next to Kelly Chambers. “You all saved our lives.”

Ken Donnelly stood up from his chair as he agreed, “Exactly, lass.”

Each of the Cerberus crew readily nodded, some murmuring their own thanks yet again. Shepard smiled to herself as all of her twelve team members seemed to withdraw in awkward thanks. Kasumi muttered something to Jacob next to her, and Thane and Samara shared a peaceful look.

Mordin inhaled loudly enough to catch their attention, then blinked. “Part of job. No one left behind.”

Ken, Gabby, and Kelly all smiled at the older salarian. Dr. Chakwas finally did, too, after Joker gave her a soft pat to the shoulder. It didn't surprise Shepard, not when Mordin had guided the group back to safety with Kasumi at his side and nursed all of them back to shape. But Doc's smile quickly fell, and her eyes didn't blink again for another moment or two.

Shepard viewed Karin Chakwas, her friend and almost second mother, with concern, exchanging a glance with Kelly and Mordin after. She shifted her weight and took a step forward. “Take some time for yourselves tonight, too. Play some cards, eat whatever grub you want. Relax. Talk to me or Kelly if you want. Meeting in the morning at ten, same place. And then, like the big family we've come to be, we'll make our decisions known and take vote on the mission. Okay?”

“Yes, Siha,” Thane kindly replied with a small bow of his handsome face. “The time is respected. Thank you.”

“Welcome. I'll be upstairs all night until anyone who wants to be seen has the chance,” Shepard reminded them as she gave a brief wave. “Dismissed.”

Voices rose up as bodies shifted and people walked out of the cramped area. Some went into the bathrooms, others crew quarters. A few of her team went to the docking bay to get themselves some last minute things, Jack griping loudly about a type of power bar she'd grown to like needing to be available galaxy-wide and not just found on shithole stations.

Garrus appeared at her side. His strong, naturally reassuring presence helped, and Shepard stepped up on her toes to kiss his bandaged cheek.

“This almost ready to come off?” she wondered as she looked it over.

“Doc says within the month, yep,” Garrus answered with a happy sigh. “About damn time.”

“Hey, you, I'm just glad you had a functioning face.”

“Yeah, fair enough.”

“Shepard, can I get you anything set upstairs while you handle things? Or would you like me preparing anything else?” Miranda asked, stepping closer in her heels. “EDI's run another check on supplies, for my sake at this point. She tells me it's all calculated for a couple of months.”

Shepard leaned forward and hooked her arm around Miranda's shoulder. “Miri, you're awesome, but that suggestion I made for people to take time for themselves applies to _you_ , too. You've done the hard work. Take one evening, please.”

Miranda huffed and crossed her arms with a smirk that Garrus and Shepard both returned. “Keeping my peace of mind by running checks _is_ taking time for me. I'll have a glass of wine later.”

“Good,” Shepard grinned. “Might do you some good, Miranda.”

Garrus held his big palms up. “Can't _kill_ you, anyway, to try and take five like the rest of us, Lawson.”

The perfect woman laughed under her breath and elbowed Shepard as she strode for her office out of the mess. “Then be sure our _Commander_ does the same, Vakarian.”

Shepard stuck her tongue out at Miranda's dark head.

Garrus chuckled and slipped his arm about her waist, walking to the elevator with her. Turian blues eyed her hotly when the metal doors shut and the box lifted through the ship.

“If you have _any_ energy left after this, you know what _I_ wanna do to relax.”

“What, watch you calibrate?”

Garrus licked up her throat and kissed her jaw. “Hah, _hah_ , A. Could give _you_ something to calibrate.”

Shepard's hand brushed Garrus's chest armor and slid downwards, cupping over the area protecting his groin briefly before giving him a warm kiss on the mouth. Garrus watched eagerly, soft interested sounds echoing in the tight metal elevator. Then Shepard winked, let go, and turned to exit it as they settled on the top floor. "Good thing I'm good with my hands, then.”

Her turian boyfriend growled behind her, the sound raw and sensual and _very_ familiar at this point in their lives. It easily warmed her belly and sent flutters through her heart, even as he grumbled, “You can be _such_ a tease, babe.”

She shook her hips as she walked out, laughing after he groaned and hit the elevator control panel for another floor. Twenty minutes later her fish were fed, her notes were arranged on the sofas in the cabin, and Shepard nodded to EDI's holo to open the door as the first of _many_ knocks that night rapped itself into her awareness.

  
  
  
  


 

 


	2. Knock, Knock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.

 

 

 

 

 

She understood, absolutely she did, when a handful of Cerberus ship crew came to her office through the evening. She let them talk, let them cry if they needed to do so, and she even let one particular attendant from the CIC scream at her for two seconds before watching him look horrified and apologize in his shaking upset.

The trauma was beyond what she could comprehend, even with her own death experience. She hadn't been captured in a pod, tortured, or forced to be aware yet unable to move and help herself or anyone else as others were killed around her. Her crew had been, though. Between her reports and Kelly's, Shepard just hoped the Illusive Man was going to compensate each employee's health care for the rest of their lives. It was the _least_ he could do, even with them all volunteering originally for the assignment.

But it wasn't just Cerberus crew struggling or needing to leave, and so Shepard also understood that it was inevitable that some of her own team would appear with those knocks at her door that night.

Kasumi was first, saying she had a contact to meet dealing with the gray box they'd recovered, and that she needed to follow that lead for a while—for her need to know what had gotten her old partner killed. She wanted off the ship here on Omega, had already booked her next path in advance. Shepard understood, shook the thief's hand, and thanked her for her time and service, smirking when Goto replied as she left to keep an _eye_ on Jacob's crunch count for her.

“It's for research purposes,” Kasumi defended herself. “Future job possibility. Never know when I might have to rob a gym.”

“Liar,” Shepard grunted, hearing Kasumi's trailing laughter.

Zaeed was next, visiting her in between a few of the Cerberus crew. She'd expected Massani first, if she were honest with herself: One, he was a merc literally paid to a do a job that had finished. Two, she hadn't gotten Vito as she'd hoped to promise him—not at the expense of a mining facility and many lives. So when Zaeed had stepped in with that hint of older swag to his hips and leaned against the tanks, she'd been ready. She thanked him for his service, too, regardless of what he might think of her.

“I think you're a goddamn strong willed person, Shepard. I can respect that,” Zaeed said when Shepard had given him a raised red brow. “I've taken a bullet to the head. You've taken on Death itself. Few like us. Fewer with the will to still get shit done.”

Shepard grinned. “And you've got shit to get done elsewhere.”

“Yep.”

“Fair enough.”

Zaeed gave her a tight wave, a mention that he'd leave in the morning but say his farewells to folks tonight, and walked out of the cabin.

Shepard popped two of Dr. Chakwas's ordered pills for headaches right after that, trying to keep her head straight through her _own_ trauma of the mission, that will of hers Zaeed respected now stuck on her mind after his exit.

Of course she still had her will, her purpose. Of course she'd use it, even if she couldn't see the entire path so clearly. Of course she wasn't going to go belly up with Reapers possibly still heading their way. But, fuck, it was tiring, wasn't it? Heavy. Thankless, often, even if she didn't need the gratitude. In the Council's case her duties were often _annoyances_ , which was far worse to be considered.

“Shepard,” Mordin called at one point while Shepard was rubbing her temples, thinking of how much she couldn't _stand_ that Council _still_ , even if she _had_ saved their asses.

“Mordin,” she called back, not turning around, bent over her desk with her elbows on it.

“Shepard, _hydrate_. Dehydration source of headache. Too much thinking, not enough drinking. Also am leaving.”

“Yeah, yeah. Wait, what?”

She spun around as Mordin composed himself near the door, hands behind his back. He sighed, a sound full of tired experience and the fear it has yet more to do. “Our...talks on and after Tuchanka. Have been...giving great thought to your words. Don't know yet next assignment, _but_ eventually _will_ likely poke STG files for genophage updated information. Can't...let the images go, Shepard.”

Shepard propped one elbow on her knee and held her forehead. “I get you, Mordin.”

“So, thought to take opportunity given earlier. Should go. Much to see, much to do, much to _research_. Am not young, Shepard. Will not live forever. Salarian lifespan significantly shorter than average human.”

“Hey, do what you gotta, Mordin. I won't stand in your way.”

“Thanks, Shepard,” the elder salarian sighed again, big eyes blinking rapidly as he observed her stress. “Will leave suggestions with Dr. Chakwas. Aware she is _good_ at job, but...have ideas to help you still.”

“Kind of you, Mordin,” Shepard said gratefully, looking up at him. “Thank you. I mean it, Mordin, _thank you_ for all you've done.”

He tilted his face. “No need, Shepard. Part of job.”

“You always say that.”

“Is truth, not semantics. Curiosity was satisfied over Collector research. Your words are _appreciated_ , though.”

“Good.”

Mordin smiled and began to turn from her line of sight.

“Hey, Mordin?” she quickly asked, catching his attention again. “You want to stay to the Citadel?”

One of his eyes narrowed as he thought, the effect humorous to her. “Mm. Yes. Travel easier there. Farewells then, Shepard.”

“Sure, Mordin. See you tomorrow.”

“ _Rest_ , Shepard. _Hydrate_.”

“I will.”

Mordin's smile shifted to something she only saw when he seemed to contemplate the natures of giving and taking life in his career, something...keenly aware and yet also self-amusing. Shepard raised a red brow, waiting.

“Also, advice for later in case of... _stress relief_ ,” he muttered wryly. “ _Don't ingest_. Will be sure Chakwas asks health questions in my absence.”

“Mordin!” Shepard swiveled her chair, grabbed her datapad, and flung it at the chuckling scientist as he quickly moved for the elevator and ducked her throw. Nonetheless, Shepard grinned for the brief half hour she was alone afterward because she'd heard him singing before the elevator doors closed.

Samara entered around eleven that night, checking on Shepard as she zoned out over the desk after her last Cerberus visitor. And when Shepard had noticed the sympathetic, yet bittersweet expression on the usually stoic asari's face, she knew.

“You, too, huh,” Shepard sighed, but smiled at her. “Want a ride to the Citadel or off here?”

“Here is fine. I can get where I need to go from here, Commander. Don't concern yourself,” Samara replied and rested her back against the wall near the spot EDI's holo usually popped up. “There is still much to be done in my duties, but I am glad to have been part of this mission. It is a relief to have fulfilled something so well.”

“I feel you. Are you...okay? About...Morinth, I mean. You never did talk about her much after what happened at the apartment, and I never wanted to push you, Samara.”

The asari bent her head kindly. “And I appreciated that respect, Commander Shepard. I am fine. There is fleeting pain now and then, but the Code has taught me how to handle grief. How to do what must be done and survive.”

“Your Code still seems like a blessing and yet a curse to me in that way. It's so absolute.”

“It must be.”

“You're strong to adhere to it as you do. I don't know many that loyal to their next meal ticket, let alone a Code for the years you have put into following the justicar ways.”

Samara shrugged, but her eyes were soft. “We all have our reasons for taking up the Code.”

“Are there more Ardat-Yakshi out there? Your...other daughters, too?”

“Yes. A monastery of them living in accordance with law and safety. Two of my daughters reside there now. Morinth...could not give up her individual life and purpose in such ways, and again...though I did what I had to do, Shepard, I am _still_ proud of her resistance even if I am hurt by her deeds.”

Shepard nodded, heart heavy. “It's not nearly the same, but...I'm proud of Ash, even if Garrus shouted in her face on Horizon with his own rational logic. She stood with Alliance no matter what. Didn't budge on her beliefs, though I wished she'd listened to me a little more. She survived the attack, and I'm glad even if we argued. It meant she was _alive_ to yell still.”

“I expect you have not really said as much _to_ Garrus, though.”

“He'd understand now, being more distant from the event, but no. I haven't.”

“I cannot blame him for his words, knowing where they stem. I have heard more of your story from Joker and Dr. Chakwas. It is...quite the tale of love and loss,” Samara admitted, a rare smile showing on her lips. “It is inspirational. You are, Shepard. And I hope your journey to your end will be, at the least, together. Happy as you can be. Fulfilled.”

Shepard choked then, forced the emotions back down her throat before they overwhelmed her the way they'd been trying _since_ they'd come back through the Omega-4. She stood up, stepped to Samara, and held her hand out. “Thank you, Samara. For _everything_.”  
  
Samara shook her head readily, steadily, and with her signature calm. “The honor, Commander, was mine.”

 

 

\------------------------

 

 

The last knock around one o'clock hurt most.

It wasn't because she didn't understand. She'd simply come to rely on him so much for friendship, for covering her six, for intuitively being where she needed him to be in any given situation.

So when Thane rapped softly at her door, Shepard knew the owner of the fist knocking without having to look. It was always soft, but firm like that. Gentle, yet sharp.

Shepard immediately moved to sit on the floor in front of the tanks, and Thane joined her, cross-legged at her side. Neither spoke for nearly ten minutes. They just sat in silence, and Shepard stared at the fish swimming about, imagining them as people she knew in life going all the directions they had to go. Just like she had to go her own, too.

Eventually Thane put a friendly hand over hers. “Siha.”

“I know, Thane,” Shepard murmured without any anger or frustration. “Your health and your son come first before anything. Should have before what we did with the Collectors. I am _grateful_ you put your ass on the line to help. The least I could do is respect your decision now to be with your son again. I _would not_ have survived without you all these months. You helped me deal with my death, and you can't know what that means.”

Thane smiled out the corner of her eye. “I'd say there were many instances you spared me as well in both combat and personal pain. I've never needed a cloak like your armor has, but I definitely grew to appreciate its applications, just as I am fond of your bravery and friendship.”

“Thanks, Thane.”

“Will you be all right?” he asked her next with a small squeeze of her fingers. “Will you burn out the star inside of you, Shepard, or will you remember that space is composed of many planets and materials working together? Can you let your burden be shared?”

Shepard closed her eyes tiredly. “Not sure yet, Thane. Ideally, yes. In practice...that's harder for me, not because I can't trust people—I obviously did trust all of you in this mission—but because its in my nature to try to carry the weight. People often look to me for help. I know _I_ need help with the Reapers. I know it's not a solo mission, and I _don't_ want it to be. I just also know...we were lucky this time. Next time...we probably will not be.”

“You are not an Earth ox, Siha, though you are stubborn.”

“Damn right. Just feel like it sometimes.”

“Then refuse the yolk the way people put it upon you. Craft it in a way to share.”

“I know people need to be able to fight for themselves and feel individually accomplished, safe, and secure. There's lots of reasons to take up arms. I hope I can help them, though, to get to those places. Wonder if I've done enough.”

Thane scooted closer, his knee nudging hers. “Siha, no one in this life has done more _for me_ than you. You are my closest friend, Shepard. The one I trust. The one who has seen the darkness of my life. But you are also the one who saw the light of it, too, and helped me hold onto it again. _Thank you_ , Siha. My son is waiting for me on the Citadel because of _your_ help.”

“I was thinking of a push to the Citadel in case some people wanted a mass drop-off there for safer travel than Omega. I've mentioned it to people who came in here to chat with me. Take it that's your wish, too?”

“Yes, if I can stay until then.”

“You're always welcome on any ship of mine, Thane Krios.”

“Thank you, Shepard. I will help you any way I possibly can in the future. For now I must take time for my son...for myself, for once,” Thane whispered, then coughed roughly and cleared his throat. “It grows worse since the base attack.”

Shepard winced. “I'm sorry, Thane. It's not fair.”

“It is a balance—my body has taken lives, and mine one day shall be taken, too.”

Shepard leaned against the assassin, head on his shoulder in a partial side-hug of sorts. “You'd better write me, Thane. Talk to me about anything fun you get to do for yourself and Kolyat.”

“I promise,” Thane swore softly. “And you write me of your troubles, of your successes...and even of your bond, if you need to do so. I do not have the best advice on such things, but I can listen and keep my silence if that is all that is necessary.”

“He has serious respect for you, you know.”  
  
“I do. He's thanked me four times since we returned to Omega for helping you both.”

Shepard grinned at the black eyes watching her. “He's a good one.”

Thane nodded, smiling as well. “He is, at the least, someone who understands your burdens, your life, and your _spirit_. He is your complement, Siha, and I am _proud_ to know you both. I am _happy_ you have one another. When I cross the sea...when I see her again...well. I hope one day to feel again what you might on a given moment when you see him standing near.”

The tears won then. Shepard felt them streak down her cheek as she hugged Thane tighter, still easy with his chest in case of hurting him, but tight enough for him to understand her emotions.

“Are you considering voting in favor of the Overlord assignment, Shepard?” he asked, both of them watching a koi dart away from a sunfish.

Shepard nodded against his shoulder. “Yes. Not for any sense of owing the Illusive Man or the like, but for my crew to have something more 'normal' to end things and transition. For me to hopefully get my ship out of it. And, well...I have to speak with Anderson on the Citadel, but I am not ready to decide things at this moment. I died technically. My service was thus terminated. But though I know I'll likely go back to the Alliance soon—resources, Reaper preparations and such—I need to decompress first, Thane. I need to feel _normal_ , too, since I was brought _back_.”

“A fair response. Thank you for the honesty.”

“Welcome.”

“Will you see your mother, then? His family, perhaps?”

Shepard winced. “His mom, hopefully, maybe. Still not sure how it'll go down with the rest of his family, but I _will_ support Garrus if that's what he wishes us to do somehow. And Mom, well. She's been aiming for the Citadel since she heard we made it. I think she'll wait out for us to arrive and scream at anyone telling her no.”

Thane chuckled. “As stubborn as you are when the right thing is there before you. Good.”

“Definitely had parents with hearts of gold, Thane. I really lucked out.”

“Yet you never get the time with them. Didn't seem to with your father before, from the way you've spoken.”

“I didn't. I had them, but I wasn't allowed them much, and I think Mom has some regrets about that. It's hard, though, when you're military. When the _family_ is. It's just such an accepted thing that the regret is usually overridden.”

“A shame, and yet it is one I understand all too well.”

“Yeah. Career...hazard, huh.”

“Very.”

The door to the cabin hissed open, and Garrus walked in with a small smile. “EDI said you were up here. You guys hungry? They saved some food. There's two tables of cards going on down there. Grunt's actually kicking ass. 'Course, I _might_ be helping him with some finger signs on what to play or hold.”

“ _Garrus_. Are you cheating with that visor?”

“What? Not my fault people's heartbeats get jumpy. He's gotta learn somehow.”

Thane laughed with Shepard, and Garrus shrugged watching the close friends push to their feet. Shepard smiled, aching already as the drell moved to Garrus and shook his large hand.

“You are an impressive ally, Vakarian. A...good friend.”

“You, too, Krios.”

Thane gave them a slight wave and moved around Garrus comfortably. But there, before he was out of Shepard's line of sight, he turned with a smirk. “May you have a _quieter_ future.”

“Huh?” Garrus asked, confused, as he turned around.

Shepard blushed when Thane entered the elevator and left them there.

“Babe, what did he mean by that?” Garrus nagged her once they got their turn in the elevator afterward. She stared at him, begging him to get it silently. His pupils dilated suddenly when he did. “ _Oh_. He heard... _me_. When you...used your...mouth.”

“Heard you losing your goddamn mind, that's what, yes.”

Garrus, smirked, rolled his head back and forth confidently, and stretched his shoulders. “So. That was _hot_ , A. One of the few memories I hoped I'd see if we'd died on the Collector base.”

Shepard lost it. She laughed until it hurt, and she rested against his chest in the elevator, stepping up on her toes to kiss him on the nose with the doors opening on the crew deck. “You never fail to make me laugh, Garrus.”

“Yeah? Well he's _failing_ to get over here and hel—watch me win,” Grunt grumbled at her from his full table of Cerberus crew, including a skeptical Donnelly. “Get over here, turian. My luck needs a comeback.”

 

  
  
  


 


	3. Relief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.

 

 

 

 

 

Garrus woke up alone in Shepard's bed to a note saying she'd tried to wake him three times twenty minutes ago and gave up. Smiling, he went down to the mess hall in his civvies, blinking with hints of hangover. He wasn't the only one. A few others had congregated early for the vote meeting and goodbyes. Tali spoke with Goto near the kitchen counters, Samara and Thane stood talking against the medbay windows, and Miranda sat with her coffee at one of the mess tables, going over something on a datapad with a few of the Cerberus crew quietly eating some snacks around her.

He yawned and took a seat at the other end, amused to see Shepard and Mordin picking some debris up from the night before as Gardner whipped the rest of them up some breakfast. Garrus's stomach growled with hunger, and Miranda smirked behind her cup.

“Look, Lawson, I'm either going to be first to eat or last depending on what order of protein Gardner cooks over there,” Garrus said as he stomach growled again. “Get used to it.”

Miranda snickered, and they both glanced up as Joker hobbled around the divider that hid them from the elevator on the third floor. Garrus watched the pilot plop down carefully next to him. Joker looked a bit ragged, Garrus thought, based on the gruff appearance, redder eyes, and the hat he kept pulling farther and farther down his face.

“Joker, you'd better be flight ready in four hours,” Shepard called softly as she tossed some more trash into a container for compacting later. “No hangover flying, mister.”

“Yes, _Mom_.”

“I'll ground your ass and let my AI fly, _son_.”

Joker groaned, clapped his hands over his head, and put his face down upon the table near Garrus's wrists. “Noted, Shepard, but can you be _quieter_ when you sass me today? _Damn_.”

Shepard rolled her eyes their way, but even Garrus could see the smile in them.

Garrus chuckled and bumped his arm to Joker's. “You finished that bottle, didn't you.”

“I don't back down on bets.”

“Human ego seems destructive,” EDI commented, earning a snort from Joker.

Garrus agreed. “You took one against out drinking _Jack_. Seems you forgot how biotics work with their metabolisms, huh.”

Joker huffed, his hat bumping from the exhale. “Oh, shut up.”

“Heard my name,” Jack muttered, striding around the divide to glance back at them. Her dark eyes settled over Joker, and a grin spread over her mouth. “Hey, wimp. You made it. Thought for sure you'd be dead from alcohol poisoning.”

“Mordin saved my ass with IVs.”

Mordin nodded next to Shepard, and Garrus watched his girlfriend trying to be both amused as herself and _not_ frustrated as their boss. “Simple. Also boosted with vitamins and mixture for hangover.”

“Hate to break it to you, Mordin, but I'm _screwed_ this morning. Don't think you nailed that part.”

“Was done correctly, human,” Mordin countered smugly. “Would be _worse_.”

Joker lifted his face, looking a bit green. “Oh.”

Garrus crossed his arms and chuckled with sympathy.

Around an hour later, most everyone was up and gathering together, filling the mess once again. Garrus sat on one of the steps leading to the battery, tired with a full stomach of delicious cooking thanks to Gardner.

Shepard cleared her throat, and despite the lower murmurs everyone had kept out of the many groggy faces like Joker's, they were able to hear Shepard and become silent. Garrus watched her from the back, blue eyes on her head as she began to trek slowly in a small circle so she could scan every face there. When she made her revolution around the room, she looked to him last, smiling softly.

Garrus smiled back and sent her a soothing subharmonic in support.

Shepard faced front and clasped her hands behind her back. “Okay, folks. We're all here, so...let's get started. As of _this morning_ , we have four Cerberus staff transferring and five team members exiting the ship. All but three, Kasumi, Zaeed, and Samara, will be going with us to the Citadel next for transport there.”

Eyes darted about, peering at the thief, the merc, and the justicar with almost saddened respect to see them leave already. Garrus was one of the people watching them in such a fashion. He might not have gotten to know any of them well as close friends, per se, but he hadn't needed to do so; they'd been reliable team mates, and that had been the priority. He knew he owed Goto for keeping Shepard safe a few times on missions, and Zaeed had saved his _own_ ass on the Collector base during his team leading. Samara had fought each time she left the ship with measured clarity that Garrus had only really ever seen from Thane Krios, and without her biotic prowess on the Collector base, they'd never have made it.

Shepard looked to each of them now with pride, respect, and gratitude. “I want to thank the three of you on behalf of us all. Each of you contributed your best to our mission. Each of you kicked ass and helped bring us to victory. So _thank you_ , and may you be safe wherever your individual paths take you now.”

A round of applause started around the room from somewhere in the Cerberus section, and Garrus clapped behind Shepard, smirking when he noticed Joker alternatively clapping and covering his ears.

“I also, really quick, want you all to know if you are transferring or leaving us after this that there is _no_ judgment. From any of us. We all must do what we can for ourselves now, and I understand that,” Shepard stated, pacing a little as she often did in her small speeches. “I want to thank you _now_ for your time and your efforts. Your individual strengths.”

Garrus caught a few of the Cerberus crew seated near Miranda's spot by the divider talking quietly among themselves, seeming unsure but grateful for Shepard's assurances all the same.

Shepard squared her shoulders, impressive and back in full Commander swing. “As for the _rest_ of us, it's time to take a vote.”

“Yes, Shepard,” several people chanted at once.

Garrus grinned, loving the effect it had on Shepard as she stood a little straighter and nodded with satisfaction. “All right. Remember, this is yay or nay on acceptance into investigating the Overlord project. There is likely to be danger, but it seems limited to team members as far as we can tell.”

“Will you be voting, too?” Tali questioned as she adjusted on her spot on the floor near Dr. Chakwas.

Shepard nodded. “Yep. To avoid any written language barriers with aliens, we're doing a yay and nay vote by my count. Hands up when I call your option. All those in favor with a yay, raise your hand now.”

Grunt's arm was the first up, and Garrus wasn't the only one snickering at that with the krogan grumbling at Mordin for the salarian's amusement. Legion was second. A fair amount of the Cerberus crew raised their hands quite willingly after that, surprising Garrus. Gabby and Ken's hands made sense, at least, with their dedication he'd seen. Miranda raised hers next to Jacob's. Dr. Chakwas raised hers as well after a moment.

Garrus's hand went up when Tali's did, the pair of them sharing a look of concern that veered immediately to Shepard's own raised hand. Joker's went up while his face planted to the table in his hat.

Shepard looked about, expression serious. “Final count. Hands up now. EDI, what's your say?”

“I vote yay, Shepard,” EDI replied quietly over the comm. “Thank you.”

“Welcome. All right. That's majority already, but we will take nay votes. Hands down, folks. Those opposed?”

The remaining Cerberus crew not leaving raised theirs—about three or four people in total. Garrus caught several eyes in the room glancing to Kelly Chambers, who sat looking at the floor without a vote to either side. She was leaving, he surmised, and after what she'd been through with Joker's and his own witness accounts on the ship and Collector base, Garrus didn't blame Chambers at all.

Jack's arm flung itself up, her wrist cracking as she made a fist. She scowled as she saw how outnumbered she was. “Oh come on. I like punching out people as much as the krogan does, but doing more Cerberus work is still a waste of time.”

“Your vote counts, Jack. You can leave if the numbers don't agree with what you'd like, though I'd be happy to have you stay,” Shepard spoke carefully, voice calm to show she intended no offense. “Your call, Jack.”

The biotic lifted her lip in a sneer, rolled her eyes, and put her hand down. “Count me yay, goddamn it. I'd rather punch something Cerberus _still_ , even if it is some asshole in a base.”

Several crew stared at her.

Jack grunted and crossed her arms. “What? None of _you_ , obviously, unless you wanna _go_.”

“ _Okay_ ,” Shepard called out, catching everyone's attention. “Yays win. Miranda, contact the Illusive Man and tell him we accept the offer on the table to investigate as soon as we leave the Citadel. I expect to deal with the mission in a couple of days with travel time factored into the equation.”

“Will do, Shepard,” Miranda replied, already stepping away to the elevator.

“Anyone who voted nay that may want off at the Citadel, come meet with me sometime today. Be advised everyone should be updated on final pays and bonuses with mission ends now,” Shepard explained, leaning next to Jack where the biotic perched on the kitchen counter. “Those still staying will be additionally paid at the end of the Overlord investigation. We'll figure out anything we need to do then once I've had a chat with the Illusive Man. Ship is leaving port in two hours, people. So those staying, be at your stations, and those hopping off, be sure you're out of docking by then. Dismissed.”

Garrus rolled his shoulders, pushed to his feet, and as he watched the crowd dispersing from the mess, he alone caught the tension still in her stance. “Shepard,” he called softly behind her.

She turned, clearly tired and stressed behind that Commander's mask. “Yeah?”

He tilted his head toward the battery. Garrus walked up the path once he heard her footsteps behind him, and when they stepped inside, he shut the door, locked it, and quietly asked EDI to give them a moment.

“Sure, Officer Vakarian,” EDI replied, her tone helpful and comforting somehow.

Shepard's lips twisted to the side in an attempt not to smile. “What's up?”

“Just thought you might need a sec,” Garrus replied, hand sliding down her arm in the uniform. “Sorry I didn't wake early enough for, ah...some fun.”

“To be honest, once my headache got too bad last night, I just passed out. This morning hasn't changed that too much.”

“I carried you upstairs, you know, while Joker was _loudly_ telling people to _shush_.”

Shepard snickered, smiling finally. “Drunk goofball. That's adorable.”

“Guess he doesn't _always_ drive me crazy,” Garrus chuckled and bent his face. He sniffed in her warm scent layered with his own full of contentment, nuzzling her cheek. “You're sure you want to do this mission?”

“Yeah. I don't know what's coming after, yet, but I do want to take it—not for the Illusive Chainsmoker, but for the crew. Who knows how many others he might have fucked over on this Overlord project?”

“Fair,” Garrus murmured, tongue licking under her ear. “You gonna be okay once we hit the Citadel, though? I know Mordin and Thane leaving hurts.”

“I'll be fine, Garrus. Thanks, though, for asking.”

“No problem.”

Shepard slid her arms about his neck and kissed him, angling her face to his the way he always loved, her soft fleshy lips the slightest bit wet to his mouth. Garrus ran with it, excited as he moved his hands down her sides to her hips, pulled her closer, and then lifted her up. Human legs wrapped about his waist, and he walked to the nearby wall and rested her against he side of it gently, fingers cupping her fantastic ass.

“Mm. Stress relief, huh,” she whispered, the sound of a gasp afterward stirring the blood through his veins quicker.

Garrus growled a little and pushed against her. “What do _you_ think, A.?”

“I'm game.”

“How much time can you give me?”

“Fifteen. Sorry, hon. Too much shit to double check before departure.”

Garrus lifted his face, smirking. “Hey, I can wing it.”

Her laugh filled him, lifted his spirit, before he kissed her again. Her tongue touched his. Her fingers brushed under his fringe with experience. And Garrus melted a little, still in shock to even be alive...still sometimes wondering if he might ever _wake up_ from this lifelike dream of being with her.

Shepard hitched her left leg tighter around him and let her right one slip down the back of his thigh. Garrus adjusted her. One palm supported her weight, the other moved to ribs and over her breast while she kept clinging to him, her tongue alternatively dominating and submitting to his.

He felt himself emerge, felt himself rub against her warm core through their clothes, and Shepard stopped kissing him to moan, her red hair resting to the metal behind her. Green eyes slowly, gorgeously, opened to stare at him, and Garrus's pulse skyrocketed, his cock slipping out even more from the pelvic slit in excitement.

So he was attracted to a human female in a way he could never explain. So he _loved_ a human female more than anyone else he'd ever known. So what.

What did he care of the opinions of others, of his family, when he could do _this—_ grind into her over and over, feel her soften against him in the best of contrasting ways with her nails skidding down the back of his neck to the front of his cowl.

Garrus cupped her breast, massaged it carefully with his blunted talons over her shirt, and then he grazed his fingers downward to her pants. He tugged at the band of them with a hot look, and Shepard gave in right then, dropping her arms from him to unzip her pants.

“Put me down,” she softly requested, and Garrus frowned slightly, but did so, too curious as to what she was up to next.

Shepard winked to reassure him before turning and placing her palms against the wall. “Well?”

“Have I told you that I love you yet today?” Garrus drawled, large hands instantly on her ass with a tight grip before his thumbs started shoving the material down her thighs. He rumbled with masculine satisfaction, his senses full of her strong scent, her pheromones, her sounds. “'Cause I do. I love you. _Fuck_ , I love you, woman.”

She chuckled and glanced once over her shoulder. “Been too long, I know. The last two weeks have been _insane_.”

Garrus sighed in understanding. He nodded, let go of her, and unzipped his own pants, freeing himself from the underclothing awkwardly at first. He felt slick, lubricated well from arousal, and so he wasted no more time with the fifteen minutes ticking. Garrus stepped closely behind Shepard, his mind rolling with fantasy, and he brushed her entrance from behind.

She moaned, but stayed in place, let him take control the way he figured she'd needed him to do for days now. Since the Collector base destruction, he'd watched her operate almost on auto-pilot, barely stopping to take care of herself with Chakwas or himself reminding her to do so.

It was enough, Garrus decided, and slipped easily inside with the both of them so ready.

His head went back, his jaw dropping, his eyes clenching shut with how _damn_ good she always felt inside—so soft, so warm, so encompassing. Hips began a subconscious rhythm, rocking easy at first until Shepard bent more against him, lowering her palms and back somewhat to line up easier.

He watched her, saw her fingers grabbing at the wall the way she clenched around his cock, but the side of her face he could see through her red hair was too on the verge of letting go. She was still wound tight, her soul conflicted over loss and victory.

“It'll be okay, babe,” he whispered, thrusting harder, groaning at the delicious smack of her rump to his front. “Let me...let me help.”

Shepard exhaled long and low. Her fingers relaxed, her body relaxed, and she gasped, giving into the moment and to Garrus, letting him pick up the pace to something pounding, something grounding with its energy that kept her there with him in the moment and not in her head, lost to worries and fears that never ended.

Garrus focused on her the best he could given how great she felt and how distracting it was to pump himself into her welcoming body. He instinctively registered her breathing increasing, could almost hear her heartbeat with its change, could smell her getting closer and closer to relief.

“No matter w-what happens,” he began with a tight swallow, “I'll...be...there.”

“I know, big guy,” she said and pushed into him, rising up more over the wall and looking over her shoulder. Garrus's heart swelled at the love in her eyes.

“You'd better,” he teased, bent over her and licked her ear.

Breaths caught in his throat. Pleasure rolled through him like a shockwave. And Garrus reached a thumb down to brush that magic spot he knew existed, smiling to himself when Shepard finally let go: Her energy released through her, her spirit relaxing even as her body tightened with orgasm and need. He thrust twice more, eyes closed, and held her close, buried inside of her as he came hot and heavy.

“Fuck,” Shepard sighed contentedly. “God, I needed that.”

“Happy to serve, _Commander_.”

“Oh, hell. Don't start that shit. We don't have the time.”

Garrus chuckled, kissed her head, and slowly withdrew from her as he softened, hissing gently at the last teases of her warmth caressing him. “Mm. Well, _I_ feel better. Might actually get some real calibrating done today.”

“Garrus, you calibrate _every day_ ,” Shepard huffed, pulling her pants back up and zipping the front. She turned, shaking her head in amusement.

He shrugged as he zipped his clothes. “Doesn't mean I'm always entirely concentrated on it, babe. Sometimes I gotta deal with _you_ in my head.”

Shepard stood up on her toes and kissed him softly once. “I get that.”

“Good.”

“I gotta go clean up. You have any errands to run, or are you good?”

“I'm not stepping back onto that shithole for anything, Shepard. I'm _tired_ of Omega.”

“I know,” she said, her tone apologizing. “Less than two hours, hon. It'll be good to be traveling.”

Garrus nodded, blue eyes roaming her to be _sure_ she was all right.

Shepard moved to unlock the battery door, paused one last time, and grinned at him. “By the way....”

“Mm?”

“Mom's meeting us for sure on the Citadel.”

Garrus's eyes widened. “Ah...um... _okay_. Good to _know_.”

“Relax, honey. She likes you, remember?” Shepard winked and pat his arm as the door opened. “It'll be fine.”

“Fine. Yeah. Everything's fine.”

“Garrus.”

He waved her off, flustered and nervous, and when Shepard stepped out down the hall, Garrus turned EDI's comms back on in the battery. He didn't say anything, just got to work, needing the distraction again.

A moment later EDI spoke in the quiet from her holo station as he brought up menus to work. “Heart rate normal. Blood pressure lowered.”

He smiled.

“Her vitals are calmer than they've been in days, Officer Vakarian.”

Garrus exhaled, relieved. Grateful. “Thanks for keeping an eye on her for me...for keeping your word to help her and not _him_ this whole time.”

“You're welcome, Garrus. I am happy to help.”

“You're not bad for an AI, you know.”

EDI flickered in her holo, brighter blue. And with a soft surprised thanks, she blinked out.

  
  
  
  
  


 


	4. A Mother's Pride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Momma Shep.
> 
>  
> 
> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Shore leave for anything you need personally. Two days, people. Accountability check via omni-tool, and one briefing at 07:00 on Monday. Anyone changing their mind about going on the Overlord assignment, speak up by tonight. Everyone else, dismissed.”

The mess dispersed with people excited to hit the Citadel shops and restaurants, and a breath eased out of Shepard as she watched survivors of something no one else on the station could understand now smiling for the first time in days.

Shepard walked to the cockpit, escorted by Garrus, Tali, Thane, and Mordin. She glanced to the salarian as he coughed lightly going into decontamination. “Shepard, will be making arrangements. Should be off ship by evening. Will speak before then.”

“Gotcha. Thane, what about you?”

“Kolyat has a place here on the Citadel as he serves his community sentence. I will be visiting him and likely staying near there,” Thane explained, hands behind his back like always. “I'll let you know.”

“It'd be nice to see him again,” Shepard murmured, winked, and turned to elbow her quarian friend. “And you, Ms. v _as Normandy_? Big plans?”

“Better suit repair equipment. _Keelah_ , I'm desperate after the junk parts on Omega.”

“Yikes. Sorry, Tali.”

“And food that's better than simple nutrient paste. I've heard a tiny quarian cafe is trying to open up here, and there's tastings going on,” Tali said, her voice quite excited. “So I will see _you all_ much later.”

Garrus laughed, arms crossing. “Yeah, Tali, I'll be thinking about _food_ now the entire time we deal with this meeting with Anderson. _Thanks_.”

The airlock opened and the small group broke up once they got past initial security and through C-Sec. Tali immediately wandered off for shopping, Mordin wove his way through a crowd to elevators for the salarian embassies, and Thane all but disappeared before them. Garrus tapped her shoulder and pointed to the taxis. “Ready?”

“Ugh, no. I don't mind Anderson, but I'd rather just go see Mom. I don't want to argue about Cerberus again or the Alliance with this rep that's gonna be there wanting to haul my ass to Earth for reinstatement.”

“They start in too much, I'm pulling you out of there,” Garrus growled as he slid into the driver's seat. “We've done enough for everyone. They don't fucking _own_ your life. None of them do. Not Alliance, not Cerberus, and not the Spectres. They can kiss my turian ass.”

Shepard reached and took his hand across the middle console as the doors shut. “Have I told you how much I love the way you grumble at people for me?”

“Oh, I've noticed your _appreciation_ of it, and that's good, A., 'cause I foresee a lot of it in the future,” he drawled, typed in coordinates, and set the taxi off.

It was a smooth ride, thankfully, without too much traffic going on during the Saturday morning on the big station near the embassies and the Tower. Shepard's gut rolled more and more as they exited their vehicle once it landed and took elevators up to find Anderson's office again. Her foot tapped, her hands cupped her elbows, and her mouth was twisted to the side, all reflecting off of the elevator's glass panelling right back at her.

“I look like I aged five years in the past months,” Shepard groaned, pausing to take in her reflection more seriously. “Fucking _crap_ , Garrus, look at me! I'm not even hitting my upper thirties yet! I don't count two years in a coma, hell no.”

“Babe,” Garrus spoke, voice calm and rational, “You're not looking _old_. Calm down and look at _me_. I'm so scarred up, I don't even look my age at all now. _I_ look old.”

“Nuh uh. You look bad ass. You know who's bad ass with wrinkles, Garrus? Hackett. That's it. The rest of us look like saggy tired souls.”

He chuckled, blue eyes warm, and hugged her briefly with a kiss to her brow. “C'mon. We get through this bullshit, we go eat, and I remind _you_ of why you're still my hot human girlfriend, tired soul or not. I'm thinking we hit up that one club late tonight after we see your mom, and I take you _home_ for _real_ this time. Well, home to the cabin on the ship. I gave up that apartment ages ago.”

Shepard sighed happily and tugged his left mandible. “You're the best.”

“Yep.”

“Garrus,” she laughed, then turned as the elevator settled.

Shepard checked in with a human secretary and was ushered through the doors into Anderson's office where the Councilor stood speaking with a holo of some other human likely on Earth. Anderson saw them coming, waved, and gave his closing statements quickly to shut the holo down.

“Shepard,” Anderson greeted her kindly as ever. “About time you got here. Thought he was going to ramble on forever.”

“Who was it?”

“Old buddy of mine. He's on Earth at the moment, supposed to be enjoying retirement, but he can't stand not being in action. So I get the vids, messages, and such since he knows being in here sometimes makes me feel similarly.”

“Sorry. I trusted you most at the time.”

“And I'm honored by that trust, Commander, no apology necessary,” Anderson assured her and nodded to Garrus. “Vakarian, good to see you in one piece.”

Garrus chuckled and angled his hip. “Yeah. Good, ah, choice of words there, Anderson.”

Shepard rubbed her face. “Sir, if you don't mind, I really want to get the arguments over with on this Alliance crap. I've got one last Cerberus mission to prepare for, and my mom's supposed to be here somewhere for me to finally see after years. So if we can get this Admiral in here to yell at me and throw paperwork my way for me to ignore for a while longer, that'd be great.”

She expected Anderson's brows to go up or for him to nod sympathetically, but instead the once Alliance Captain laughed. He beckoned them to come closer to the window and gestured at some comfortable chairs.

“Shepard, I understand the need to stand your ground on this, but I think it'll go just fine.”

“Why?” she questioned, suspicious. Garrus tensed and relaxed next to her, as if unsure how to respond with her own uncertainty.

The doors parted to the office, boots firmly stepped through, and Shepard turned, eyes wide, mind remembering the precise sound of those steps from years of childhood. She shoved to her feet in her most respectable civilian clothes and stared, mouth open, as her mother walked inside with squared shoulders in a nice Admiral uniform.

Hannah Shepard winked. “Athena.”

“Mom!” Shepard gasped and quickly met her mother halfway into the office. She saluted out of habit, and Hannah saluted back, blue eyes so happy. Shepard didn't get to speak again before her mother grabbed her tightly into a hug and held on with strength the woman was so famous for, strength she had imparted into Shepard herself alongside her father's ability to think on his feet.

The tears couldn't be stopped, but she controlled the sound of them as she held on, arms around her mom's neck. Had it really been so long? Had her injuries from Akuze really been the last time she'd been this close? Guilt hit her like a blast to a ship, and Shepard's knee gave slightly from the weight of the emotion.

“I'm so sorry, Mom,” she whispered tightly.

“You have _nothing_ to be sorry for, honey,” Hannah replied, hand soothing through her red hair so finely textured like her mother's own blonde hair tucked behind her ear. Shepard's mother locked eyes with her closely and smiled, a proud mother so broken and hopeful and rewarded all at once. “I'm so _proud_ of you, Athena. God, I don't even know where to start. I've missed you _so much_.”

“Missed you, too, Mom.” Shepard wiped her eyes with one hand and held one of her mother's with the other. “We'll have dinner after, I promise. But I've got a meeting with Admiral Ridley and Councilor Anderson first.”

Anderson stepped over to the side, hands folded, and winked at Hannah Shepard. “Well, Commander, I'd say you're in luck. Admiral Ridley couldn't...make it. So they sent your mother. Some tried to call that obviously _biased_ , but my authority overrides their thoughts on the matter.”

“Hey, I can be impartial in punishing my child as a subordinate if she _deserves such punishment_. She _doesn't_. She was a hero that was MIA, almost KIA, and was saved by a group we don't trust only to have to help them with something _we couldn't do_. Not her fucking fault. My daughter bleeds Alliance blue just as I do. She's no traitor.”

Shepard gasped in relief and hugged her mom again. “Oh thank God, Mom. Ridley has _such_ a shit reputation on actually listening to people. He's the one they send to knock someone down a peg and bring them in for collaring.”

Hannah's blue eyes narrowed. “Yeah, well, that asshole's facing charges of adultery with a subordinate officer thanks to his wife finding out about his extramarital affair. That's a charge in Alliance. He's in all kinds of legal trouble.”

Shepard blinked, gut all too knowing. “Mom. You didn't.”

“Hell yeah, I did. Lisa's an old friend, and I was pissed on her behalf. Micah was bragging when he got selected that he was going to rope you in like a dog for working with Cerberus, but we _all_ knew he just wanted the attention and to smear you for choosing to help aliens at the Battle of the Citadel,” Hannah snapped, glancing to Anderson with protective anger. “And _no one_ fucks with my kid like that, grown woman or otherwise. She messes up, she owns it. You don't rake her for your own ego.”

Anderson held his palms up peacefully, smiling.

Shepard laughed until it hurt, she was so fucking grateful. She wiped her eyes again and saw Garrus standing off behind them watching, looking nervous but also deeply relieved for her. She jerked her head, summoning him, and he stepped to them, hand taking hers as she offered it.

“Mom,” Shepard began, tugging Garrus's wrist. “This is Garrus.”

Hannah Shepard nodded. “We've met. A tiny bit. The...funeral wasn't the best place to start.”

“I barely remember that day,” Garrus admitted quietly. “Wasn't...really all there.”

Shepard smiled as her mom came closer and pulled her startled turian boyfriend into a hug just as tight as her own had been before. Garrus eyed her from over Hannah's shoulder, and at Shepard's grin, used his free arm to hug her mom and pat her on the back.

Hannah retreated enough to stare up at Garrus intensely, blue to different blue roaming one another until Shepard's mom broke out into a grin. “So do I call you son, or what?”

Garrus swallowed, laughing awkwardly.

“ _Mom_.”

“What? I know you, Athena. He's the one, no matter how this goes.”

Garrus's brow plates lifted and he slid his hand out of hers to wrap around Shepard's middle. “She's my one, too. The long haul. I'm in for it. Even told my own mom that. She's supportive.”

“Then welcome to the family, Garrus,” Hannah said warmly, eyeing the pair together. “I've been talking with your mother some. Nice lady. Likes Athena a lot. Says she's got more respect and fire in her than most of the boring matches your family had tried lining up before.”

Red from her chin and up into her matching hair, Shepard bit her lip. “Well...um.”

Anderson strode back to the window, giving them a moment and snickering to himself as Hannah took a step away and shrugged. “And she's right. We're both right. We adore our kids and we can't stop talking of how amazed we are by the pair of you. You can't know how damn happy I am for you to have one another. I'm so proud of you both. I can't believe what you've been through together in action the past years, let alone...in your hearts with loss and reunion. I don't know anyone who's accomplished what you have together, and I won't let anyone I know slam you for it.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Shepard,” Garrus replied, mandible grazing Shepard's hair. “It really means a lot to me.”

“Just Hannah, Garrus, remember?”

“Sorry. Habit.”

Hannah smiled and looked over to Anderson across the room. “Let's get this thing over with. I'm starving, Athena's stomach is rumbling louder than mine, and Garrus here can probably hear both enough to start going crazy soon.”

Anderson gestured at the chairs near his desk, and they all took seats, Shepard in the middle with her mom to her left and Garrus holding her hand to her right. Anderson pulled out some files, a data pad, and set his VI to recording the meeting for notes.

Her old mentor sighed to himself as he began. “I know this situation is as abnormal as they come, Shepard, not only for what you've been through but for my own placement in this. People will question my authority because of our past working relationship and my place within Alliance. They will question Admiral Shepard's as well for being your mother. But all _three_ of us have excellent track records at putting things aside to get to the heart of a problem, and that's what we're going to do to prove those questions needless. Okay?”

“Yes, Councilor Anderson,” Shepard agreed.

“Good. We've exchanged many messages during your work with Cerberus. You've given us intel you could have given them. You've chosen Alliance time and time again. That speaks for itself. But we need a tight timeline here of events. We need your reasons for everything, details that you can share, and the purpose of another follow up mission you've mentioned taking place in the coming days.”

Shepard brought up her omni-tool briefly and swiped through messages. “I have here transcripts forwarded to me from Liara T'Soni explaining the process of my body getting into Cerberus hands. From there I have documentation on _everything_ that happened to me from the woman in charge of that project in bringing me back—one Miranda Lawson, who will be fully cooperative in any questions _you_ yourself have.

“Timeline is as follows: The _SR1_ was attacked, as you well know, by a ship of unknown origin, verified by Joker himself and any survivors. The unknown ship turned out to be run by the Collectors, a group of aliens so rarely encountered they've been considered myth by many. But they were very real. The Collectors collaborated with groups, like the Shadow Broker at times, and their big mistake was collaborating with the Reapers themselves in attacking my ship. Though I technically died, I was recovered safely enough to be treated from the frozen conditions. Many major medical operations were performed, but _none_ of that included anything mentally influencing on Cerberus's part. The Illusive Man himself said he wanted me in top shape the way I am to deal with these Collectors he knew were a threat. He wanted nothing less than what I'd shown as a Spectre before I died.

“I recovered over a lapse of two years. Woke as the station I was on was internally sabotaged by a Cerberus worker named Wilson, and when I left I was debriefed on what was going on over the past years—the colony abductions Alliance knew about but didn't understand, the changes with political atmosphere, all that. I have prepared documents detailing missions since then for review that show the steps done in completely identifying the Collectors and verifying their Reaper ties, and I will forward that all, too, even footage my AI has. We tailed Collectors, merc groups, and ran _N7_ missions all during this. We attacked the unknown ship that attacked the original _Normandy_ , were on Horizon, and dealt with a derelict Reaper at one point. I got my team members squared away. In the end we went through the Omega-4 Relay with a tool, found the giant station housing their ships that functioned like a home world, and we destroyed it with a bomb.”

“For all accounts and purposes, that should have been a closure to this relationship with the terrorist cell,” Anderson murmured, dark eyes curious. “Yet this new mission is going on. Why?”

“Why, indeed,” Hannah replied, shifting in her chair to watch her daughter.

Garrus gripped her fingers again, grounding her as Shepard said, “Well, the Illusive Man hadn't wanted me to destroy that station. He wanted to use the tech from it to advance the human race...in his direction of what he felt that advancement is, of course. I disagreed. That, ah, explosion of difference led to repercussions for my staff and crew with ship repairs and the like. Assets were frozen. My second, Miranda Lawson, negotiated a deal for final payments and such for Cerberus crew and team members remaining if I accepted a look into a disturbance at one of their facilities. I'm going to see what the problem is and contain it, hack it, smash it, or arrest it as necessary.”

“And when you're finished?” Hannah questioned firmly. “Then what?”

Shepard closed her eyes, exhausted. “I'm not entirely sure yet. I'm obviously considering rejoining Alliance with Reapers being a threat at large still, but I need time for myself. I _have_ to have that time, or I will break. Look at the past three to four years and tell me you wouldn't take a vacation.”

Hannah smirked, brows up as she viewed Anderson. “Any words to that?”

“Yeah, hit a beach somewhere and have drinks on me,” Anderson quipped and straightened in his chair. “Alliance has big questions, Commander, as to your intentions. As to your loyalties and ties with Cerberus itself.”

“She has none,” Garrus growled, startling everyone but Shepard. “She did what she had to do to help _people_ , not that organization. She saved _lives_ because of it. Many lives. Cerberus just had the resources to get the job finished where Alliance couldn't. It's the same reason I joined and helped her. She's not pro-Cerberus. And honestly, I'm not sure she should be pro-Alliance, either.”

“What drives that thought, Garrus?” Hannah asked calmly. “Particular bias from your culture or work with C-Sec or?”

“Watching my girlfriend endure hell for them as a tool, actually,” Garrus countered, and Shepard could feel the rumble coming from him. “She's been nothing but a tool to use for political agenda since you nominated her for Spectrehood. She did the impossible against Sovereign—I was there—and she died with people still trying to convince her she was crazy about the Reapers. I got to watch all of you and the Council cover it up and blame geth as always. I got to watch you stomp on what we did, what _she did_.

“And then I saw the anger from one of your own on Horizon after we saved what we could...more than what Alliance could with their nonfunctioning guns without our help. Your Alliance member that day wouldn't stop accusing Shepard of just being with Cerberus. She wouldn't see the big picture. And we get it. We were the ones who worked for Kahoku. We know _damn well_ what Cerberus has done. It's important to note Cerberus operates with different cells of structure, and each isn't directly responsible for what the other does, like how Lawson worked on saving Shepard while others did shit I don't want to know about. Even so, we didn't trust them. We trusted our crew. Our team. We did what we had to do, and we got out of there. Shepard's last mission for them isn't even for _them_. It's for the staff to transition from being in a traumatic situation to something more 'normal' in comparison and wind them down easier. Sometimes a straight transition to civilian life is more difficult than that.”

“Fair points, all of them noted,” Anderson said, checking over the datapad on his desk. “Thank you, Vakarian.”

“That being said, Anderson, I don't believe the Alliance is any better. They've used her just as the Illusive Man has as means to an end. They want to keep doing so because her name has value and weight in the galaxy. She dies, and they're up in arms over her survival. They don't _own Shepard's life_. She should not be forced to re-up just because she was kept alive. Security clearance concerns are one thing, and I get that being turian, but Shepard's only been Alliance supportive through _all_ of this at your own admission, Councilor. Scrutiny of her is overkill.”

Hannah nodded, easing some of Shepard's stress. “I agree. I will review all documentation sent by Commander Shepard alongside you, Councilor, and we can further question if discrepancies or matters arise in our cataloguing of the information. We'll coordinate any further meetings.”

“So, am I going to be able to finish this mission I signed an agreement for to help the crew, or are you all planning to hold me on something until you either butter me up for a new contract or figure out a way to contain my influence?” Shepard inquired, temper rising a little. “Garrus is right about that, and you know what I care about? The Reapers. They're coming. I don't know when, but they are, and judging by those abductions with the Collectors alone, the Alliance isn't prepared. None of you are. But Cerberus has a small leg up from just acknowledging the threat for what it is, and they will change the game when the Reapers hit the field before Alliance or the Council or anyone can do anything.”

“And your intentions?”

“My intention, Admiral, is to possibly join Alliance again if they step up and see this threat for what it is. Otherwise, I may find my loopholes to work Spectres only. I am not guaranteeing reenlistment until at least this last Cerberus funded mission is done and I've had a moment to breathe. I will not sleep easy with this hanging over us, especially if I'm one of the only people knowing that truth. I will not be spreading Alliance intel or secrets _ever_ , regardless of being signed with the organization again or not. I have no political motive to be concerned about outside of trying to prepare people for the Reapers somehow and my relationship with Garrus, here, as he's turian. I will obviously care about his people and their plights, too, but I worry about anyone...human, turian, asari, krogan, quarian, _anyone_ with this shit coming.”

Anderson marked some notes on the datapad and clasped his hands. “I'm only asking this because if I don't, someone else will in a worse way. I know the answer, but it must come from you and not me. Commander, is your relationship with Garrus Vakarian politically motivated in any way that could be of concern to the Alliance, the human embassy, or the human race? People will ask because of his family's connections within the turian government.”

Garrus scoffed, muttered something about humans knowing _squat_ about his family connections to anything, and Shepard squeezed her boyfriend's hand. “Councilor, I'm in a relationship for love. There's no politics involved in that. I'm not selling secrets or planning to do so. I love my turian man, and he's as great in a fight as he is in bed. If that makes me an 'ambassador' of sorts between our peoples, then fine, I have no problem being loved and getting laid to do it. That answer the question?”

Anderson almost spit water from a glass on his desk, and Hannah laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. Shepard accepted the happy kiss to her cheek from a chuckling Garrus as her mom quieted down. “Sometimes you sound so much like your dad. Damn. Alex would be so proud of you.”

Shepard blushed, and she smiled, picturing her father grinning at her behind Anderson.

“I'm certainly proud of her,” Garrus stated, looking her over with open love.

“Thanks, hon.”

“Welcome, babe.”

“One last thing, Commander,” Anderson said, slightly warily. “This ship of yours....”

“I'm working on a deal to get it from the Illusive Man. He doesn't want to part with it at all, and since he put two _billion_ credits into its construction, I can get that. But he's aware he can have influence over me emotionally if he does, and he thinks I'll reconsider joining permanently. Jackass.”

“Well, Alliance wants it. They claim it's rightfully theirs.”

“The intellectual concept it was founded on was joint Alliance and turian,” Garrus argued. “Alliance has no sole rights to it, and this ship is modified. Bigger. Different. They want it, they can pry it from Cerberus's hands or ours.”

Anderson sat back, brows up.

“Admiral, are you satisfied with this preliminary meeting? Will you pick this up with all of us via conference calls and messages once you've read what you need to read?”

“Yes, Councilor, I am. I'll comply with requests and protocol and prepare reports. For now, I'm _still_ hungry, so I'm walking out of here with my kid and her other half, and we're going to stuff our faces. Ping me at your own risk.”

Shepard watched her mother and Anderson shake hands, and Garrus leaned over to whisper in her ear, “I see where you get it from now.”

“Get what?”

Garrus didn't answer her. Instead he just shook his head, snickered, and kissed her smirk away.

 

 

\----------------------------

 

 

Over two shared bottles of duo wine, plates of dextro- and levo-protein dinners, desserts, and lots of whispers and looks, Hannah watched her daughter and Athena's turian partner for hours. They talked of little things at first—of things from Athena's prior term as a Spectre on the _SR1_ , of memories the pair had from then. They laughed, grew quiet, and stared exhaustedly in a rotating kaleidoscope of emotion across from her with each memory discussed.

Her daughter spoke in more detail of the last moments of her ship attack. Hannah listened to every one even as they crushed around her heart, the fear her daughter had felt so deeply imprinted on her own all over again with the descriptions of the hissing sounds of air and then the _silence_. She quickly noted Garrus struggling as well, his arm always about Athena's shoulders in support, but his pretty turian eyes closing his emotions off and on to everyone all the same.

As a mother Hannah Shepard had been terrified from the day she'd learned she was pregnant. A military career tied with her husband's rotating presence with the batarian raids had led to the inevitable before they were more prepared, and Athena had been born into the galaxy as a fighter from birth...her very first strong grip of Alex's finger proof. Hannah had felt vulnerability she never had before, even with her own Alliance family before her. She'd learned in the single instance of hearing her newborn cry that her priorities had shifted forever.

And now, sitting across from her _highly_ accomplished child-turned-adult, Hannah nonetheless felt the _same_ vulnerability as she had that very day of Athena's birth.

She'd always trusted her daughter growing up to do the right thing, to be safe, to help others. Athena had been raised well between her efforts, Alex's, and later Caios's as well. Hannah had always known a special bond had existed between her turian friend and her daughter, one fulfilled for them both as Caios had been condemned to never see his son again and Athena had sadly lost her father in his dangerous MOS. So though she'd not banked on Athena really making the time for relationships much with her adherence to her career, an inherited family trait, it had also _not_ surprised her that the one who'd truly broken through her kid's fears of balance in love and career was a turian.

As Shepard described the taste of some whipped cream to Garrus, Hannah considered the turian sitting opposite her. She'd _long_ been considering him and knew most everything about him that she could—from his C-Sec records, from talking to people about him, from interviews after the Battle of the Citadel, and from his own _mother_. He was a hothead sometimes, but he had a great heart. He was strong willed, determined, and a hellion if he got his teeth into something unjust. Loyal almost to a fault. But here he was, Citadel hero, nuzzling Shepard's neck and teasing her about her hair seeming longer, his talons drifting through it in his amazement at its softness. Here he was, a family's estranged son, finding family with Athena. Loving her daughter the way no one else really could. Needing each other so perfectly.

“Alaire tells me you might get to visit her,” Hannah said, interrupting Athena's latest explanation of custard texture. “When might you do that?”

Garrus immediately winced, clearly feeling guilty, but Athena patted the unscarred side of his face, rubbed her brow to his injured mandible, and replied, “After the mission possibly. I'm taking this step by step, Mom, but I do want to meet her. And the rest of the family.”

Garrus sighed and rubbed against Athena's cheek with his. “It's not that I don't want you to meet them, babe...it's that...well. Mom let me know that Dad _flipped_ out over us. It _won't_ be pretty.”

“Yeah, well, a big red krogan merc ended up becoming a good friend after I thought we were gonna shoot each other once, so you never know what might happen,” her daughter said, patting Garrus's hand on the table. “They need proof of who I am and my sincerity, if we're to get anywhere, Garrus.”

“I know. But.”

“No buts. I love you, and I can deal with it. Your family _matters_ , and you're not going to have to choose between us. I refuse that crap.”

Hannah smiled proudly and sipped from her glass.

Garrus huffed, clearly happy and mildly embarrassed, and he downed the rest of his wine quietly.

“At any rate, Garrus, you're part of the Shepards now,” Hannah reminded him calmly. “So if you need anything, let me know. It's hard being a parent in this sort of job, and it's harder knowing your kid suffers for the work that needs done. Her joining years ago both helped and hurt worse, because we saw even _less_ of each other, _but_ it isn't distance that matters here. We always consider each other no matter how far away we are.”

Garrus's head came up, and he looked to her, his strange bright eyes intense. “I can understand that. Dad's career was always hanging over us. Moved us places. I had my own service and job. And my sister's Blackwatch affiliation takes her far away, too.”

“How's this plan for your mother going, by the way?”

“Mordin's putting together a team with the funds we allotted,” Athena answered with a yawn. “I trust him. They'll figure out a better treatment plan, at the least. Turians are brilliant, but a hive minded group of salarian scientists is a whole other beast.”

Garrus squeezed Athena to him between their chairs. “True. And Mordin's...what did Kelly call him?”

“A hamster on coffee.”

Hannah laughed. “I don't know him, but all I've read from what you describe is certainly apt for that.”

Her daughter nodded, expression falling softly. “I have to say goodbye to him tonight. Maybe Thane tomorrow. Kelly left this morning. Had my own private chat with her. She doesn't feel safe...and I don't blame her. I told her I'd help however I can; she just has to let me know whenever she needs it.”

“After what Joker said...fuck, I'd get it,” Garrus said, head shaking. He glanced back to Hannah, muttering, “Collectors dragged Chambers by her hair to abduct her. Joker witnessed it.”

Hannah sat her glass down in shock.

“It was horrible, Mom. EDI had footage. I...I've never been so _fucking_ angry. So _violated_ , even knowing what Cerberus did to me.”

“Athena—”

“I should have been there.”

“Babe—”

“No, both of you, I should have _been there_ ,” her daughter snapped, the glass in her hand cracking from the pressure of her anger. Shepard sat it down, frustrated, and Garrus examined her palm for small cuts. “I wasn't there. I let them down. Joker went through _hell_. He doesn't talk about it anymore. He'll laugh anything off, but _not_ that.”

“Babe, we rescued them. Every single one.”

“I know.”

“Then cut your ass some slack. If we hadn't had our whole team with us, more could have been taken, too. We needed _all_ of them to infiltrate and destroy that base.”

Athena put her brow to the table, grumbling.

Hannah sighed, a sound she had often in her daughter's energetic youth, a sound so understanding and yet so hopeful for Athena to see the steps as important without concentrating on individual failures in them. “Honey.”

“Mom, I know. You gave me the talk after Akuze.”

“Want another?” Hannah asked with a smile. “I've got the time and energy.”

Garrus laughed quietly as Shepard rolled her head back and forth on the table negatively.

“Then you know what I think, and you know to do as Garrus says. Give yourself some damn credit, honey. _No one_ has done what your crew has, and they wouldn't have without _you_ leading them. I know you want to save every life, and you know you can't always do so. You know that when you lose someone, you keep it together to get shit squared, and when you get a chance later or make one, you hit that enemy twice as hard in revenge.”

Athena snorted, but looked up finally as she rested back into Garrus's side. “Trust me, the Collectors felt _every_ hit I gave them.”

“You said you want us to prepare for these Reapers, and I agree. But the question, Athena, is how? What can we even do? You speak of them as these colossal creatures, and I saw Sovereign's footage well enough to agree. It took combined fleets and your own inside maneuvers to bring _one_ of those fuckers down. So what can we _do_?”

Shepard swallowed, fingers toying with a fork and a tiny bit of custard left on her plate. “Stockpile. Educate. Consider what the dangers of indoctrination could do to governments. Increase security borders and patrols around colonies and Earth. Cooperate with intergalactic force on a bigger scale of that.”

“Set up better communications,” Garrus added. “Upgrade weapons. Create biotic shields big enough to cover a settlement. Lots of little things. We never said it would be easy or even practically defensible; this is a scale no civilization is prepared to fight. But we break them down one piece at a time by what we have seen and analyzed, and we can keep on the board.”

Hannah made mental notes. It had worried her from day one, this Reaper business. She'd _never_ doubted her daughter's words, and it had angered her to hell and back that others in the Alliance and elsewhere had. Garrus was right before; her daughter's death had been made into a showboating mockery of her, with funeral tours honoring someone only the way they would to further an image they wanted of false safety. She'd fought them on it, too, but the Alliance and Citadel had made an agreement and shouted _over_ her.

Garrus poked Shepard in the ribs. “Like we did with the Collectors. They could fly, they could shoot, they could coordinate. And what did we do? Figure out where they hurt most.”

Her daughter's nose scrunched. “Sometimes I still hear those damn bug noises.”

“Made them, mm? Photos I've seen looked insect like enough, certainly,” Hannah mentioned, the chuckle in her throat building as her daughter's face soured. “Ah, Athena. You've hated bugs since you were a kid.”

“Why is that? I mean, I get rachni spooking her on Noveria. They came out of the damn grates, and they were supposed to be extinct.”

Hannah's brow arched. Shepard shook her head. “No, Mom.”

“Oh, honey, let me be a mom. C'mon. I get to tease you once.”

“ _Ugh_.”

Garrus lit up excitedly. “This is promising. What happened?”

Hannah ignored the pleading look of embarrassment in Athena's eyes and lifted her glass in a toast. “My daughter's a spacer. She takes to ships better than land or water. What do you _not_ have on space ships if they're clean and run properly, Vakarian?”

“Pests. Insects,” Garrus said, eyes rounding.

“So we never had any. Athena had never come into contact with an insect, nothing outside of educational vids, lectures, and visits to Earth. But, one time, a childhood friend of hers from class was given a rare insect for studying, and he wanted to present it to the room when we were stationed briefly on Earth without Alex.”

Shepard groaned. “Giant fucking cockroach of doom.”

Hannah held her stomach, the laughter deep. “I'll give her that. It was _huge_. Like a foot long, at least. Mutated some from being near eezo. It could _float_. And she showed up to class late from being in a meeting with me and a counselor, and it jumped right at her face when she peeked through the huddled group of kids.”

“Shut _up_ , Mom!”

“I heard the scream halfway through the building.”

“Exaggeration.”

“The hell it is. Exaggeration would be that your father heard it on the colony he was defending, but hell, maybe he did. Had two units of soldiers show up thinking there was an attack.”

Shepard groaned and covered her face, and Garrus cackled with glee next to her, holding her lovingly against him. “Aw. Babe. No wonder you lost your mind on Noveria.”

“I hate all of you. That cockroach tried to kill me. The rachni tried to kill me. The Collectors _actually_ killed me. Give me some goddamn pity with my phobia.”

“Athena, that cockroach simply jumped.”

“It tried to eat my _face_.”

“You were twelve. I think your memory is a bit _exaggerated_.”

Her daughter scowled, looking much like her twelve-year-old self right then.

“Yeah the rachni tried to sizzle us with acid, at least. She shot them though. A lot. Seriously, I thought we were gonna be short on ammo. And she hated dealing with Collectors, but she killed every one of them that she saw like a pro. I say we forgo reenlistments and open up that extermination business.”

Shepard rolled her green eyes, eyes inherited from her father just like the red tone of her hair, and she elbowed Garrus in the gut, listening with a grin as he wheezed behind her.

“ _Ouch_. So mean, babe. You know we're soft there.”

“Stop making fun of me, big guy.”

As Hannah finished her last bit of wine, she smiled to herself, enjoying the little light squabble between Athena and Garrus that ended with a mutual laugh, a kiss, and them forgetting the rest of the room even existed.

 

 

 

  
  
 

 


	5. What the Hell is That?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go!
> 
> [Note: Introduced the Hammerhead in this story differently since I didn't usually replay Firewalker.]
> 
> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
That night while Garrus took some brief time to shop for his personal needs after dinner, Shepard boarded the ship and went straight to Mordin's lab. Even with the salarian about to leave their crew, it would _always_ be his lab to her with its smells, its random noises, flickering lights of machines and consoles, and of course, echoes of his humming in her memory.

Red brows popped when she entered from the CIC and found Thane standing near Mordin as Mordin scanned his bared chest. Shepard immediately winced, feeling disruptive and intruding, and just as she tried to apologize, Thane smiled and waved her closer.

“What's up?” Shepard questioned.

“Getting checked,” another voice answered her from behind. “For the disease.”

Shepard turned slightly, smiling a little as Kolyat emerged from the corner shadows, arms comfortably crossed over his leathers and chest. His eyes blinked that unique drell way, and Thane's son looked from her to his father watching them while Mordin just muttered to himself and scrolled through a datapad.

“You were checked?” she asked Kolyat.

He nodded his teal colored head. “Yes. No signs in my lungs. He's...doing routine now.”

Thane smiled to himself when Shepard's head swung back his way. “Any advancement on your case?”

“Mildly, yes. The...atmospheres we've been near on some of the missions likely didn't help, but overall the dryness has given me more time than I had once thought possible, Shepard.”

“I see. What do you two have planned next, then?”

“I'm still working, doing my service,” Kolyat explained to her left, adjusting to lean against the small bit of wall by the consoles. His dark eyes drifted over his father. “He wants to...stay near.”

Shepard bumped his shin with the toe of her boot. “Good thing, right?”

Kolyat stared her down a second, but nodded to her relief. To Thane's as well.

Mordin brought his omni-tool over Thane's chest and swiped it again, grumbling about treatments being necessary, yet not having anything aboard to even try sampling for more research.

Shepard waited until the salarian finished and was typing something else to ask him, “Still...going to work on those ideas you told me, Mordin?”

Mordin briefly glanced to her. “Of course, Shepard. Important. Haven't reconsidered.”

“Good.”

“ _Drell_ should consider vacation. Somewhere _dry_. Healthy for body and lungs at this stage. Not _too_ much travel. Not _too_ much hospital exposure.”

Kolyat considered this quietly while Thane actively spoke his thoughts. “Perhaps Kolyat would be willing to accompany me somewhere.”

Shepard winked at her friend's son, watching him shuffle his weight with a hint of comfort and embarrassment. “I think he might. If you do, take pics.”

“Sure, Shepard,” Kolyat replied, amicable, even if he still eyed her a little warily.

“Anything else any of you need from me?”

“No, _Siha_.”

“Negative.”

Shepard sighed and gave both alien crew a quick salute. “It's been an honor, guys. Thank you for _everything_.”

“The honor was ours, Shepard,” Thane assured her with a rough cough as he slipped his arms back inside his leather sleeves. “You gave us a chance to make some of the galaxy right again. To save life instead of merely watch it be taken or abused.”

Mordin shoved some sort of digitized packet of information from his omni-tool's interface to Thane's own with a flick of his gloved finger over the holo image. “Drell is correct, Shepard. No thanks necessary.”

“Make sure you have all you need with you. This ship isn't turning around once we leave port,” Shepard reminded them. “We're already behind schedule a little, and I'm worried about it.”

Mordin turned from Thane to Shepard, hand extending to her shoulder and holding it firmly. He blinked twice, stared at her, and sighed, “Careful with Cerberus. Angry now. Manipulative. _Will strike back_. Maybe now, maybe year from now.”

Thane's dark eyes were full of concern and silent promise of aid.

Kolyat seemed unsure, lost to their personal lives the past months.

But she knew Mordin was right.

Shepard's jaw locked. “Trust me. I'm waiting on it.”

 

 

\------------------------------------------

 

  

The _Normandy_ made quick time for the Typhon system after a relay bounce, and Shepard stood in the cockpit behind Joker, listening to EDI speaking about the planet of their destination—Aite.

“There are several stations established planet-side, Commander, and it is full of beautiful views and wild fauna and flora,” EDI spoke, her holo-form steady nearby on its platform. “Also, as you noted prior, there is an area of volcanic activity.”

“And you think our shuttle can handle all of that heat if we have to with all these stations?”

“Reports indicate a different flight vehicle is waiting at our drop point, should you require something small for locational lands.”

Shepard crossed her armored arms. “Sure hope Garrus knows how to fly it, then.”

“Simple protocols,” Miranda confirmed, stepping up behind her. “Like a sky car on the Citadel, just slightly different.”

“Different how?”

"It's like a jockstrap—it's awkward to get into and clunky to move around with in the air sometimes,” Jacob answered behind Miranda with a smirk. “They're called Hammerheads.”

“Okay, then. Any other advice about what we might be getting into here?”

Miranda's blue eyes iced over. “From what I could dig up, Commander, it appears research on Aite was under one particular scientist and had something to do with VI...amplifying it or the like. Much is redacted, of course.”

“So we're looking at possibly mechs,” Shepard inferred with a grunt.

“Commander, there is also...a derelict geth ship ground-side. One of the stations is built _into_ it, in a way,” EDI added, her blue light catching Shepard's attention with the word _geth_. “No responses on scans to indicate operating platforms at this time over that area.”

“For _now_ , maybe.” Shepard sighed and brought up her omni-tool. “Legion, copy.”

“Shepard-Commander?” the geth's automated voice filled her comm.

“Possible geth planet-side. Any of yours perchance?”

“...no.”

“Good. Get prepped,” she ordered and turned over Joker's shoulder and hit the ship's comm system buttons. “Okay, folks, I want all of you in the shuttle for landing in five. We may already be on a time crunch with this, and more hands...and more guns...can finish work faster. Suit up. Be ready for heat. And, ah...maybe geth.”

“Geth?” Tali questioned immediately over Shepard's private channel.

“Legion said none of its group. But there's a crashed ship with no active readings.”

“I see.”

“Garrus, I want armor piercing mods on at all times. Disruptors for anyone who can use them,” Shepard dictated from the cockpit. “Grunt, that means less fire from you. Just bullets and fists, bud.”

“Taking my fun away, Shepard,” the young krogan grumbled over the ship's comm.

“If we run into a geth prime, you can charge it head on and add that to your record of awesome kills. How's that?”

“Heh, heh, heh.”

Shepard clicked off the mic, patted Joker's hat on his head much to his chagrin, and took off with Miranda and Jacob on her heels for the elevator. A few minutes later everyone was sitting in the shuttle as it exited the _SR2_ and left atmo for the priority station where the alert message had come from—some place with a large satellite dish.

“If it's this quiet, Commander,” Miranda spoke up across from Jack, “it's likely that there's bodies instead of people to explain. They'll need accounted for with records.”

“Pff,” Jack rolled her eyes. “They shouldn't have worked for some stupid secret Cerberus station then, huh, Cheerleader?”

Shepard's voice cut through the shuttle like a knife, Akuze and Alchera prominently in her mind's eye. “We _always_ take care of the dead if possible.”

Jack gave her gruff nod, and the rest of the ride was quiet until the shuttle started to land. Shepard's channel was hailed by a local source, and EDI patched it through, amplifying it for all crew to hear on their own omni-tools.

“Thank God. I'm Dr. Gavin Archer. We're in an urgent situation here!”

“Dr. Archer, this is Commander Shepard, Alliance. Cerberus sent me to check out your situation. Can you debrief my crew and I as we land?”

“I will try.”

“Are we looking at hostile takeover of stations from foreign agents?”

“Yes and no, Commander. We're on the brink of catastrophic VI breakout possibly happening. I think it's going to try leaping through the dish, and it needs retracted as soon as possible to prevent the program going off-planet and becoming a _literal_ virus. Our systems here have mostly...fallen to its symptoms.”

Shepard gave Miranda and Jacob a sharp look just as Tali and Garrus did. “Are we looking at a rogue AI? Pretty sure I took care of one of those on Earth's moon before somewhere during my run on Saren.”

“More of a...rogue VI intelligence.”

Tali shook her helmet side-to-side. “Shepard, I don't like this.”

Shepard nodded to her friend. “All right, Dr. Archer. We're landing.”

The shuttle did a soft rock back and forth as it steadied and the dampeners kicked on for some stabilization. It jerked slightly, landed, and the door slid open with Shepard stepping out first, Miranda at her side.

“Dr. Archer, you're present at this facility?” Shepard requested firmly.

“Yes, Commander.”

“All right. We're going inside.”

“I'll aid you with anything I can. Many of the cameras have changed controls.”

Shepard raised her red brow. “You're telling me that thing's gonna be watching us?”  
  
“Yes, Commander. And listening.”

“Fabulous,” she muttered. “Right, Garrus on my six, Mattock out. Tali keep a drone near the back. I want a guard on the shuttle to keep our pilot safe and in case for _any reason_ this rogue intelligence can't jump by antenna that it won't try jumping through _our_ systems and hack anything we have. Volunteers? Jack?”

Jack shrugged.  
  
Jacob stepped forward, shotgun at his side. “I'll keep Brandt safe, Shepard.”

“Thanks, Jacob. You get front row later if we have to drive that jockstrap.”

Taylor chuckled loudly as he walked away, and everyone but Miranda and Jack turned to stare at Shepard with puzzled expressions as to _why_ and _what_ that meant across translations to the alien crew.

Shepard entered, pistol drawn and prepped. They moved in a tight star formation with Shepard at the front, Miranda to her left, Tali to her right, Legion in the middle, Garrus at the back, Grunt to his left, and Jack to his right. Six pairs of eyes scanned everything around them as they began moving through the partially wrecked facility.

A droning announcement started looping after they passed a desk, reminding them loudly to declare their weapons and be checked with any security personnel on duty due to the secure facility's standards.

They stepped down two sets of stairs, and a voice called out nearby from a large desk monitor. Shepard quickly moved toward it, eyes still wary for anything and everything around, and she viewed the auburn haired man on the screen.

“Dr. Archer?” she asked. “What's your location?”

“Commander, I'm locked in a computer room for safety. It's on the far side of the base,” Archer said, staring at her through a camera. “There are loose geth running about, and the rogue VI took control.... Be alert, Commander. I wouldn't want to add you to the list of friends lost today.”

“So much for inactive geth,” Tali grumbled frustratedly. “Now a _VI is controlling_ them.”

Shepard agreed. “We'll deal with it, Doc. Where's the controls for this antenna?”

“Just up ahead. Thank you, Commander Shepard. And be careful.”

“You, too,” she murmured and pushed onward. Miranda took note of an open log in a nearby room they passed with a locked door and a cracked window. Shepard gave Grunt the go to slam his elbow and butt of his shotgun through it, blasting the window wide open. Miranda quickly slipped over the paneling, checked the console for information, and found a log from Archer himself, telling Shepard she was pulling a copy for records.

Shepard let her be and moved forward into the main control room for the dish. A dead body lay on the floor with a nearby gun and blood from a head wound. The second Miranda entered through behind them, Shepard pointed, and her XO bent to investigate.

Legion and Tali both stood at her sides, scanning over all the screens and buttons and information that Shepard herself was trying to make heads or tails of silently. With Shepard's encouraging nod, Legion quickly pressed a sequence of buttons and a loud, heavy metallic groan vibrated through dish outside into the large windows in front of them and shook the room itself.

Shepard watch the dish slowly start to pivot, and then stop stuck. “The hell?”

“System Error,” the computers answered her just before an odd almost geth voice tried to speak through the comms.

“The damned VI's taken control of it!” Archer called over her channel. “He must be stopped! We have little time, Commander. Get to the tram on the lower level, quickly!”  
  
" _He_?" Tali immediately questioned. 

Shepard turned, her team turning with her, and the oddest shrieking sound erupted from nearby monitors. An accompanying green light flicked on all the nearby cameras, and then a fucking _face_ , a digital _face_ , shoved itself into existence out of one of the screens and _shouted_ at her.

“Holy _shit_ , what the hell is that!” Shepard demanded in shock.

“The VI,” Legion reported. “It is different. Aware.”

“ _Aware_.”

Legion's little brows danced for a second in almost a shrug while the green VI screeched one more time.

Tali pumped her shotgun. “Shepard, I _really_ don't like this _._ ”

“Agreeing with Tali on this one,” Garrus spoke at Shepard's back. “We know some of the shit Cerberus has been into before, Shepard. What do you wanna bet this isn't their own fault?”

“We'll debate on it when we're _not_ pressed for time. We can't let this escape Aite,” Miranda spoke over the din. “Shepard?”

“Let's get to that tram,” Shepard declared and led the group out, watching Miranda synch her tool again to another log for data later. “What's between us and it, EDI?”

“A mess hall, Shepard.”

“Brace, people,” Shepard called out over her shoulder to the formation as she entered first and a rocket shot into the nearby wall. “We have geth!”

“ _Finally_ ,” Grunt rumbled behind her.

Shepard activated her cloak and ran for it, taking a position somewhere to the middle. She directed the team by comms, keeping Garrus at the back with his sniper rifle. Tali's drone immediately shot its own little rockets and took off after a trooper with a glowing green light in its head while Tali ascended some stairs to Shepard's right, and Miranda moved with Legion to clear the actual mess ahead of her of platforms shooting their way. Grunt charged a Hunter appearing to their left near the tram's access. Together they brought the mess into _some_ sort of order until one rocket trooper was left, trapped upstairs above the kitchen.

It kept behind a pole, and three of them had already peppered the area and the platform itself with each chance it took to fire, them ducking every rocket it shot back. Jack and Shepard ran up the stairs to the right, Shepard to clear off a few hidden geth in a back room off of Tali and Jack to throw out a biotic shockwave to toss the lone rocket trooper in the mess hall into the air. The second it went airborne Garrus and Legion both sniped its light, ceasing its functions before its metallic body even hit the ground.

Just as Shepard gathered everyone and took note of bodies with Miranda, a Destroyer marched its way up the tram's stairs and cut loose.

“Fry it!” Shepard called out, watching two Overloads hit the geth at once, seizing it up in electrical shock. “Now! Shoot!”

Multiple guns fired, and one last booming shot from Grunt's Claymore at close range blasted half the arm and one entire leg off of the destroyer, his follow up shot splintering the head. He gave Shepard a sharp icy-eyed smirk, and she smirked back, leading them past the broken Destroyer and down the stairs. Jack fired at the green-lit camera with a curse, and they passed through a room of creepy, haunting music approved for station-wide listening.

Shepard demanded a fast check of their medi-gel rations, deemed them satisfactory to pass the aid station, and entered the tram with her team, hopeful to stop the rogue green face of the VI from hopping planet as fast as possible.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoping for a more regular posting schedule to come after this. Life's been very weird, folks. Thanks for hanging through it.


	6. Shaken and Getting Stirred

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.

  
  
  


 

It was a tense tram ride, if not for their own worries about time then for the news Archer immediately broadcasted to them about the rogue VI beginning to align the damn dish manually with its programming. And as if _that_ weren't bad enough, there was a satellite in orbit, too, perfectly lined for a clear transmission of the rogue intelligence to jump planet.

And yeah, that was a problem. But so were the goddamn geth.

The first geth to attack them had been a destroyer. The hived AI hadn't banked on running into a krogan as it attempted to blow them off the catwalk. Grunt had bashed into the geth with a harsh screech of metal on metal, and Jack had thrown out a shockwave in conjunction with Grunt's inertia. The result had been a spinning out of control, entirely airborne, _screaming_ geth that had almost made Garrus laugh to himself before a biotic slam from Miranda had sent it flying straight down to who-the-hell-knew where. The troopers appearing after the destroyer were blasted apart by the two vanguard shotguns at the front of the group.

Then there were the geth across the trap of a bridge firing _rockets_ at them. Shepard had been prepared since the catwalk by shoving Miranda and Jack out front of everyone. It was difficult crossing the bridge and getting into the door while the unintelligible digital groaning of the VI echoed across comm pick ups over more rockets. The two human women managed to work together in a biotic show Garrus wished he had recorded live. Rocket troopers pirouetted through the air only to be crushed by sheer brutish biotic power.

It was the geth inside that were the biggest pain in the ass.

The room was circular with struts, and in the center another series of elevating walks was stationed above an open inner room. Rocket troopers shot off hissing rounds at them from inside that area, and Garrus knew they were going to become _his_ problem as they took advantage with long distance shots over the wave of troopers' heads.

He swapped immediately for his Mattock, armor rounds prepped as Shepard sent Legion behind them around the curve of the room to snipe those rocket propelling assholes. Tali's drone fired a thankfully _friendly_ rocket in turn that knocked back a barely cloaking hunter, and Miranda's overloading combined with his own to create a massive spread effect stripping shields from all the troopers coming down atop them. Jack used shockwaves to try to keep room between their group and geth, and Grunt blasted entire parts off of the hostiles closest to him with that insane Claymore of his.

What Garrus wouldn't do to try out one of those. For fun, of course.

Shepard, he noted with his eyes, was a ghost. With his visor, though, he could watch her move around invisibly by trigger sensors, and he saw her cover Jack's open six before her cloak needed to recharge itself.

 _She's gotten better and better with that thing_ , he thought to himself, his concussive round taking another hunter off of Miranda's left flank.

“Remember, our backs are clear! If you need to retreat a moment, do it!” Shepard ordered over their comms as her pistol broke a flashlight head off of a trooper to her right. “Cover each other!”

“Got it,” Garrus responded, focusing his rifle on the second wave coming at Miranda to his right. “Tali, spot me!”

“Okay! _Keelah_ , this is insane!”

“Tell me about it!”

Tali sent her drone out a second time as it dissipated thanks to a blast from a destroyer coming through another side door up ahead. Jack flung a hunter off the walks in the middle, keeping their fight on an even field. Garrus barely had time between clips to notice Legion had efficiently and quietly removed three rocket troopers, all of them aimed near Garrus, Tali, and Miranda as distant threats.

Shepard ran past Grunt, punched the side of his shoulder, and shouted as she went invisible, “You, with me!”

“Bring it, Shepard!” the krogan bellowed, running after her right for the destroyer.

Garrus paused a moment in shooting a trooper that Tali had disabled with hacking, and he flung out one harsh Overload spread, throwing off the prepped shot of the destroyer right in Grunt's face. Grunt smashed into the bot, pushing against it as it shoved back with its weight, and Shepard swung around from behind, shooting out weak spots with the Disruptor ammunition, cracking shielding and breaking joints in the knees and elbows.

Miranda and Tali took care of the remaining two or three troopers left on their side, and Garrus swapped when they called clear, his aim now aiding Legion in keeping Jack free of any cloaking bastards.

Garrus heard the satisfying _crunch_ of the destroyer's head being smashed off by one big, pissed off fist, and he grinned to himself. “Thank Spirits that tank baby's toddler phase isn't targeted at _us_ ,” he spoke to Shepard's private channel. “Could you imagine?”

“I'd rather not,” Shepard joked, uncloaking by Garrus. “Okay, breathe! Anyone picking up movement? Lotta dust in here.”

Garrus did a quick glance about, then a double take as one hot signature appeared on his visor's readings across the room. “Incoming, two o'clock, _big_!”

Grunt looked over his shoulder their way, one icy eye on Shepard. “Remember what you said, Shepard?”

Shepard tried not to smile, but Garrus could see it reach her eyes. “We'll cover you. Jack, get it unstable. Miranda, barrier. Garrus, time your overload.”

“Hell yeah,” Jack grinned, flipped off the broken body of a geth she'd pulverized, and ran to Grunt's side. Her fists started glowing bright blue.

Shepard's green eyes blazed much like they had on the Alarei, when he and Shepard and Tali had been caught in a small square room with a prime. “On three!”

Grunt nodded, and Garrus kept an eye on the signature, watching it grow even as he felt the floor vibrate slightly beneath them. The dish was slightly moving again. Shit, they had such little time.

“Three!”

The prime appeared, saw them, and raised its massive gun.

“Two!”

Garrus heard Tali redeploy her drone and caught Miranda watching Jack curiously. A red dot from Legion's rifle behind them appeared on the Prime's head.

“One! Crush it!” Shepard called out, her voice invigorated as the satellite dish's exterior vibrated again with the VI struggling for control. “Grunt, go!”

Miranda's hands went up with a broad barrier to protect everyone as Garrus overloaded the Prime's shields and seized the big bastard up. Jack stormed through with a powerful shockwave, one strong enough to knock the prime off balance and bring it slightly to a knee to catch itself, and Grunt _plowed_ through like a freighter ship through a cargo hold.

Garrus watched in awe as the young krogan broke through Miranda's barrier and into the huge geth without a lick of fear in his system. He bashed hard against the metal, the blood rage running high, and kicked out the knee that was pushing the prime back into a strong stance.

“Everyone, now!” came Shepard's order. “Miranda, drop it!”

Garrus wished he had hearing protection.

The blue barrier went down and every gun in the echoing chamber went off, blasting the hell out of the prime's head as Grunt tore its lower half apart with his damn hands and feet, punching and snapping bits of wire and metal.

With the efforts of all seven of them, the prime went down without firing a single shot.

It collapsed, its light flicking off right before a krogan foot crushed it out of further existence.

Grunt looked back at all of them with smug pride, but his eyes strayed to Shepard. And waited.

Garrus saw Shepard nod approvingly, then she approached and gave Grunt a brief visual check for obvious injury.

“Watch some of this metal. It'll pierce your gloves and through your hands if it breaks right.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Nice takedown, though.”

Grunt smirked. Shepard patted his arm. And Garrus gave her a turian salute as she turned back to face the group, smiling to herself with pride of her own.

“The rest of you, great work! Now up the stairs! Let's go, people! Clock is running out!”

Garrus ran for it, not stopping or slowing for others. It wasn't a matter of who got out first. It was important that _someone_ did. His long legs brought him up the walks, but Jack burst from the floor with a biotic shove and landed in front of him outside, her shaved head swiveling as she took in the sheer size of the dish around them.

“Commander, you must disable the dish! We cannot prevent the hack from succeeding, but we _can_ take the dish out from under it!” Archer called out in their channel. “Please _hurry_!”

“Fuck, as if we're _not_ already,” Garrus grunted, frustrated.

Shepard made it up next to Garrus and turned around. Her amazing brain worked right in front of him, her eyes the only clue he had to just what plan his girlfriend was hatching. Something resolved in them, and he wasn't surprised when Shepard said, “Split up into pairs. Garrus, with me. Grunt and Jack, Miranda, Legion and Tali as a trio. We need at least three struts to make this limp. We get out there, you break 'em. There may be geth. Call for back up if necessary, but keep them suppressed. Break the capacitors first, shoot geth after if possible in that order. Got me?”

“Yes, Commander,” Miranda replied for all of them, calm and firm in the chaos.

“All right. Let's stop this VI!”

They burst out of the top into the surrounding area, running in pairs. Shepard and Garrus passed one strut while Shepard made a quick order for Legion, Miranda, and Tali to take it up behind them. Garrus kept his Mattock out, eyes constantly alert and visor sensitive to everything going on as Shepard bent and messed with the next visible terminal to get the capacitor free.

“Here goes!” she warned him and fired her pistol.

A brief explosion sent a shock through him, but he stayed up right, holding onto Shepard to steady her as the dish shuddered below them.

“Commander, I can see integrity compromised on the dish's structure! Be careful!” EDI's voice popped through just as enemy rockets zoomed past Garrus's shoulder from behind.

“Shit!” he yelled and ducked down behind one of the long legged covers of structure at their waists. Shepard mirrored him, and they looked to one another. He nodded, gun tight in his hands. “I've got this, A. You check on the rest.”

“Get them off of us,” Shepard requested, then bent lower to avoid a bullet and started talking into her comm.

Garrus peeped over once, threw out a spread, and heard the sparks zinging in sound against broken shields, echoing _very_ loudly as more groaning took over the atmosphere around the dish. Everything was vibrating, every sound made his ears feel like bleeding inside his head, and Garrus somehow kept his focus through all the stimuli, popping up for pot shots to disorient one rocket trooper and concussive rounds to keep three more from firing at them.

He took one geth out of the picture as the dish shook hard from a second capacitor blow, and the warping from Miranda's strong biotics added to the cacophony, almost like a strange musical composition with guns instead of drums and a breaking metal bowl instead of strings grazing low in tone.

Shepard confirmed with Tali that their strut was what had broken before taking a breath and looking to him when he retreated a second, barely keeping his fucking head attached to his neck with the rocket _whooshing_ past. “How many left?”

“One sec!” Garrus risked another peek over the over protecting them, used his visor to check the nearest target location. “Three. One is injured and can't fire right, so it's walking this way!”

“You take that one.” Shepard flicked her cloak on and fired three Disruptor rounds into the head of the middle rocket trooper, disabling it. “Jack, what's your status? Talk to me!”

“Geth, Shepard! Krogan's trying to keep 'em back long enough for this stupid terminal to open up. About lost my fucking arm to a rocket!”

“Have Grunt ram the capacitor!” Shepard encouraged. “Keep him clear!”

Garrus's next round took the wounded rocket trooper's arm off at the elbow, and his follow ups quickly finished it with headshots.

The VI's distorted scream overwhelmed them both, and Shepard barely had time to distract the final geth with an incineration tech before the entire dish buckled and started to weave.

“Got it!” Jack shouted through the connection. “Now _what_ , Shepard? We're going down!”

“She's right!” Garrus agreed, feeling the dish collapsing all around them.

Shepard jumped up and ran, Garrus right on her heels past the remaining wobbling geth, both of them trying to stay up right and not fall with each side to side toss of metal and tension. “Retreat back to the catwalks! Everyone _move_! Get around the damn geth!”

With their capacitor farthest away from their entrance point, Shepard and Garrus were able to see Jack, Grunt, Tali, Legion, and Miranda all make it safely. Garrus leapt up with an additional shove from the breaking plates below them, and he made it just as the dish actually collapsed into itself.

He didn't hear boots hit behind him, and his heart almost went through his stomach. Garrus spun, turian blues wide as possible as his girlfriend flew through the air from her jump and crashed into him, taking them both to the metal catwalks. Vibrations kept shaking their location as the dish broke apart into smaller pieces below them and sent tremors through the ground, and strong krogan arms grabbed hold of both Garrus and Shepard and slid them backwards to safety where the shaking couldn't toss them off.

Heart racing, head pounding, senses overloaded with adrenaline, sound, and _rush_ of everything, Garrus just let himself lie there for a moment to recharge. He felt Shepard tug at his uncovered mandible with love before she was helped to her feet by Tali, the quarian worrying over Shepard softly.

Shepard murmured a bit breathlessly that she was fine, and she contacted Archer to confirm their survival with the dish entirely busted.

Garrus sighed. His heart was calming finally. He listened quietly as Shepard discussed meeting up with Archer at his location next, and Garrus noticed Tali snickering at him before Jack toed his shoulder with her boot. “You dead, love bird?”

“Don't judge me,” he grunted. “My hearing is _way_ more sensitive than yours. That experience was like...like...tossing me in a blender thing.”

Miranda's human face leaned over Garrus into view, her dark hair hanging enough to brush at his armor. “Taking a break, Vakarian?” Lawson questioned, amused.

Garrus huffed at all three women, but took a quarian hand and a human one, feeling the third catch his back as he got to his feet once more.

Shepard turned as she cut her chat with Archer and looked them all over carefully. “Everyone all right?”

“Yes, Shepard-Commander,” Legion answered promptly.

“Bruised just about everywhere,” Miranda admitted. “That was a hell of an experience.”

Jack snorted. “Wimp.”

“Broken bones?” Shepard demanded. “Grunt? You break a damn femur kicking something?”

“Nah,” Grunt grumbled. “I'm no weakling.”

Tali extended her leg. “Might have rolled my ankle a little when I landed, but I think it's fine.”

His girlfriend eyed him at last from head to toe, stirring his hormones delightfully. “Garrus, you good?”  
  
Garrus stood there, slightly speechless from how easily her gaze and voice affected him to send his heart racing again in a good way. "Yeah, Shepard."

“He's shaken,” Jack teased, an elbow into his armored arm, “and by the looks of him, getting stirred.”

  
  


 


	7. The Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She'd never met the Illusive Man in person, but Dr. Archer was a damn good stand-in for the smoking eerie-eyed asshole. The man was taller than her slightly, with thinning hair, pale skin, and exhausted eyes that never lost an energy of mania no matter how tired he sounded or how many wrinkles appeared at his frown.

And just like she'd felt with the Illusive Man over their communications on the ship during the Collector run, she felt the feeling strongly return the second she saw the doctor coming to shake her hand. It was distrust. Again. And it was so strong in person she could almost feel it radiate off of him. The panic over the VI and the dish had clouded the feeling in her gut, but with that over and done with and standing right beside Archer himself, her instincts were strongly urging her to move away.

While Miranda and Jacob coordinated outside with everyone in moving and tagging the bodies of the fallen Cerberus scientists and guards, Shepard stood inside with Archer able to see them through the window as she alternated looking from the Cerberus employee to a single photograph on the desk nearby.

It was all too nice and neat, even as explosive as the situation was.

“Commander, thank you for—”

“That rogue VI didn't make itself, Archer.”

“Well, no, Commander, it—”  
  
“And these geth aren't here without a reason, are they?”

Archer's brow rose up as he slowly lowered his hand to his side. “No, Commander Shepard.”

Shepard locked her jaw, mind counting the bodies in bags outside. Briefly an image of an upturned Mako raced through her head, and she looked away from the bodies, catching a pair of turian blues watching her intently through the tinted glass. Garrus gave her a look, a very _turian_ look, one she knew meant he was assessing her mood and stance the way his species did heavily as secondary communication methods. She knew her stiffer stance, her tight jaw, and her shielded green eyes would be enough to answer his question.

Garrus immediately frowned outside, sensing the disturbance.

“If I'm putting my ass and  _theirs_ on the line as dangerously as I just did in that damn dish, then you're going to tell me everything, Archer,” Shepard said, voice deceptively soft and tired already. “So get talking.”

Dr. Archer sighed and gestured to the single frame with the photo of himself and another man, a younger man similar to him and likely family of sort. “Cerberus wanted to consider the possibilities of aid and defense we could provide if we could control geth.”

“And?”

“And we cannot communicate with geth to even begin doing so, from a natural standpoint. What about...the platform with you? I swear I heard it speak with you somehow earlier. How fascinating.”

Shepard looked sharply out the window to where Legion stood by Tali, the quarian and geth gently caring for a young woman's body as they shifted the bag and zipped it closed with its tag. Like hell was she giving up _that_ geth, ever, especially to someone as clearly interested as Archer would be. “I'm not here to answer _your_ questions, and _that_ geth there is off limits to your research. I assume you found a method to...chat...with the geth from the ship, then, if this has gone so sideways.”

“Yes, Commander. My brother—David—he's a mathematical savant, autistic and absolutely brilliant. He could, in essence, speak the language through arithmetic and equations, through the delicate network of the universe itself,” Archer said, and Shepard did not miss the hint of guilt in his voice. He gestured at the picture again. “Once...that discovery was made, it was only a matter of time before a human interfacing suggestion was proposed and acted upon.”

“Are you saying this VI is tied to your brother somehow?”

“Yes. He was...an example of the communication possible. We encouraged testing connection between David and a VI, and clearly the VI has taken control, has overpowered my brother's ability to converse and dominate with it. It is now a virus.”

“And _none_ of that sounds inhumane, insane, or absolutely like everything that could go wrong with it would to you?”

“We couldn't account for all possibilities, Commander. We could only control what we could.”

Green eyes narrowed, her distrusting wall strong still.  
  
“And we must keep it from leaping, as we have. We must keep it from controlling all the inactive geth here. Imagine the damage it could cause if it were able to find a way to leave with the geth themselves? We must stop it. We must save David.”

Shepard turned as he walked to another screen in the room.

Archer swept his hand before it. “There are stations that must be overridden to shutdown the VI's functionality. With just myself here, I cannot override the rest in junction to finish the task. I need your help, Commander.”

“How many stations?”

“This station—Hermes—as well as Prometheus, Vulcan, and Atlas. The VI is fortified within the Atlas station.” Archer moved before a drive next to the screen and withdrew a rod. Instantly a bar disabled itself on the screen. “There. This is overridden. Now there are the two left to override.”

“Tell me about them. I want to know what exactly we're walking into, Dr. Archer.”

“Vulcan Station is situated closest to the volcanic activity—thus its name. It produces geothermal energy for all our work. Prometheus Station lies in the remains of a downed geth ship, Commander. It granted us tools for the experiments. Everything should be inactive, platform wise. There has been no communications going to or from either of those places. And, lastly, Atlas...as I said it is the location of the VI's actual physical basis, and it has claimed the entire station as its own.”

“It controlled cameras here. It gonna do that at the rest of them?”

“Yes, likely. It's using the networks.”

Shepard nodded, plan already in mind. “Even without the dish, there's still risk. That damn geth ship we noted from orbit, busted or otherwise, gives it means from the inside, and it's my _biggest_ concern right now if there's a mine of geth that this VI can activate and spread. I'll speak with my team.”

“Commander, thank you, we must save the stations and the research. It's so vital,” Archer began gratefully, but Shepard held her hand up. “Commander?”

“If I've learned anything working with Cerberus, it's that their scientists are single-handedly the ones behind much of the suffering I've seen,” Shepard drawled carefully. “We're not friends, Archer. And I'm going to shut this VI down and make sure none of this happens again.”

“But, Commander, the Illusive Man requested—”

“—me. He requested _me_ to come deal with this, and I am _going_ to do just that.”  
  
Archer rubbed his eyes. “The dish situation aside, he'll want as much data and equipment saved and in working condition as possible....”

Shepard shook her head, held up the frame, and handed it to Archer. “If I were you, I'd be more worried about your brother than data.”

“I am, Commander. I'm _deeply_ frightened for him. It's my fault he was ever involved.”

Shepard turned her back and went to the door. Quietly she looked one last time over her shoulder, her dark red hair falling down about her armor's collar. “For your sake, Doc, I hope that guilt is genuine.”

Archer's mouth fell open, and Shepard exited the building, her boots striding quickly over to where people had gathered near Miranda and Jacob. Her XO came to her immediately. “All personnel of Hermes Station...accounted for, Shepard.”

“Good. The Illusive Man had best honor these losses. Forward him the information.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Jacob cracked his neck. “Shepard, you've got this look in your eye—kinda like the one you had when I first met you and I said I worked for Cerberus. Should I be worried?”

“Maybe,” Shepard muttered, not surprised when Garrus stepped to her side and stood like a silent, beautiful sentinel. “Listen up, people. In order to disable the VI, we need to override controls at two stations—Vulcan and Prometheus. That'll let us also enter Atlas. My idea is to split us into two teams, one using the shuttle and the other using the jockstrap—the Hammerhead, damn it, Jacob—so we can hit both Vulcan and Prometheus to save time and bring a solid front against the VI in its home inside Atlas.”

Taylor snickered to himself as Miranda nodded. “Good plan. How do you want to divide us up?”

“First thing is first. EDI, what's terrain like around Vulcan and Prometheus?”

“Vulcan station is housed within the surrounding volcano. The path there must be flown over some independent lava streams. Readings suggest levels of high heat, but the station itself seems protected from within and small in size,” EDI answered through their comm channels. “As for Prometheus, Commander, it is a downed ship full of inactive geth that Cerberus has tried to reuse for their own purposes. The entrance from our position scan shows a large gun defense outside of it with generators powering it. If the gun is active, you would have to destroy it to get inside.”

“And with it being a geth ship, Shepard, getting through it might be difficult, even with whatever Cerberus has tried to install inside,” Tali offered, her helmet shifting as her glowing eyes viewed Legion next to her. “Right?”

The geth nodded, its little brows moving. “Creator Tali'Zorah is correct.”

Shepard closed her eyes.

The second Archer had mentioned Vulcan, she'd gotten an idea in her gut, and though she didn't like being separated from him...she knew it would work. She took a breath and grabbed Garrus's wrist next to her. Hot green eyes focused on him, on how very serious he was across from her. “Garrus, I want you to lead the Hammerhead to Vulcan. Get to it, get inside, perform the override. Hopefully no geth will be present there, but the VI can use cameras all over with networks—and there's no reason it couldn't use _mechs_ , if they've got 'em.”

“Shepard,” Garrus murmured, concerned at first.

“You like the heat, remember?” she replied, smirking as Garrus snorted. “Okay, so here's the plan, then. Garrus, you'll take Jacob, Jack, and Grunt with you. I will take Tali, Legion, and Miranda with me in the shuttle. I've got my tech covered, and you've got brute force if you need it with mechs.”

Miranda stepped forward slightly. “What of this gun, Commander? Our shuttle has no defenses or weaponry.”

Shepard turned to Jacob Taylor, somber and heavy. “I've got an idea about that, too. I'll solo the Hammerhead. I'll get that bastard to blow its own generators by playing bait, and you all can help with the shuttle to distract it if it gets too honed in on me. And then, Garrus, you'll take the rest of the team to Vulcan and my team will enter Prometheus.”

“Commander, have you flown the model before?”

“No, but I'll figure it out.”

Jacob blinked, clearly hesitant. Tali appeared to want to speak, but she kept quiet, watching worriedly. And Garrus, the love of her life who knew her _far_ too well, put his hands on her shoulders. “Shepard, Taylor's got the experience. Let him play bait.”

She stood on the flat of her boots, yet she felt taller, older, and a little lost as she saw Garrus's concern play out over his expression. “Garrus.”

“This isn't Edolus, A. It's not a maw. We _all_ survived the Omega-4,” he whispered, leaning down to view her closely. “Keep trusting us to handle some stuff, okay?”

He was right. He was right, and she _hated it_ , but he was _right_. It was like Thane had told her—she had to stop trying to carry it all like a stubborn ox to spare them, even if she wanted to let them breathe more than she ever let herself. Chakwas would give her _hell_ if she kept ignoring her old friend's advice, too.

Shepard rubbed her brow. “Jacob, you've been in Hammerheads, right?”

Taylor nodded. “Yeah, Shepard.”

“Good, then. Same plan I had soloing, Taylor. Bait it for self-destruction and escort after. Understood?”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Let's see you fly, Jacob.”

Jacob crossed his arms over his chest, and a slow, proud smirk had settled over his lips as he muttered, “Yeah, Commander. Sure.”

Shepard clapped him on the shoulder heartily. “All right. Everyone in the shuttle. We'll follow Jacob and hover near until he's done, swing about if we need to cover him.”

“What about... _him_?” Garrus asked, his long fringe tilting back at the window obscuring Archer's form with the picture frame still in his hand.

Shepard's face closed off, her emotions walling again. “We leave him here.”

 

 

 

\-----------------------------------

 

 

 

“Whenever you're ready, Taylor,” Shepard spoke into her comm.

With everyone seated inside the shuttle, Shepard stood behind her pilot. She watched the awkward Hammerhead vehicle start up, its twin fan engines swirling loud and proud until it lifted upright. The white machine took off with a head start, and their Cerberus pilot floored after it, swinging the shuttle around with one door open.

Tali _ooh_ 'd and _ahh_ 'd over the gorgeous views of waterfall and green, of strange multiple legged creatures moving about eating the local flora. Garrus teased the quarian behind Shepard, and she smiled to herself when she heard her dear friend tease him right back, claiming him incapable of appreciating anything not a gun.

“Almost,” Garrus murmured and patted his armored hand to the back of Shepard's calf next to him. “There's one thing I appreciate _most_.”

“ _Uh huh_ ,” Shepard replied quietly, grateful to him for the centering brief seconds he always managed to give her in the heat of something. “Jacob, what's with the show up there?”

“Tight turn up ahead,” Jacob said through their connected omni-tool channels. “Watch it!”

“Brace!”

Shepard clenched her fists to hold onto her spot in the doorway, but she kept her arms unlocked to avoid breaking any elbows with the sharp twists of the shuttle over some rock and near some water. Grunt laughed his ass off in the shuttle as he caught ahold of Tali before she started to roll to the side out of her seat.

They exited through the twisting path carved out of high rock, and Shepard saw the Hammerhead flip about and hover waiting for them. She grunted as the shuttle calmed. “Show off.”

“You _wanted_ to see me fly this thing.”

“Well what I see is that big fucking laser gun. Can't tell you how many like it I blew up on merc hideouts during the Saren run.”

“Shit, I lost count,” Garrus grumbled as he adjusted in his seat.

“Why are the generators all shielded?” Shepard demanded, her question slipping to Archer's open communications line. “Doc?”

“Ah, Commander, it seems the VI is manipulating all the defenses of Prometheus. The shields will break with enough force.”

She counted to ten silently, wishing for once she could get a job done without a thousand unexpected steps in the way. “Jacob, how many of 'em you counting down there?”

“Four, Shepard.”

“Okay, make it blow its own shields and power generation, and that shield around the entrance should hopefully go, too. We'll get in close to take the gun out. Your Hammerhead equipped with offense?”

“Yep.”

“Excellent. On your mark.”

“Three...two... _one_ ,” Jacob huffed, and the fan engines whirred loudly again.

Shepard had the shuttle angle enough to see the white Hammerhead dart down off a small ledge they hovered near and over some riverbed around the generators and shields. The huge gun slowly locked onto Jacob hovering near a middle shielded generator, and Shepard called out, telling him to hold position until the laser's targeting systems were too fixed to realign quickly.

Milliseconds ticked by, the grid lit up red around Jacob, and Shepard shouted, “Now! Get out of there!”

The Hammerhead shot sideways completely out of the red targeting grid, and the gun, entirely locked on still, fired and blew the shielding apart, exposing the generator live and vulnerable. Quickly Jacob fired from the Hammerhead's small weapon, damaging the generator until it burst.

Legion leaned in a bent position next to Shepard's leg, its light looking down its Widow's scope. “Gun is moving slower, Shepard-Commander.”

“Looks weaker for sure,” Garrus added, looking past her shoulder with his visor. “Hard to tell how much from here, but I'm getting _some_ change.”

“Jacob, rinse and repeat as fast as you can. Do _not_ get stuck on the terrain, 'cause we can't get it distracted fast enough if it's locking.”

“Don't worry about me,” Taylor replied, already setting up for the second shield to blow. It broke seconds later, and he circled the exposed generator, shooting it up until he blew, too. “I've _got_ this!”

“It's great work,” Shepard agreed, watching proudly from the shuttle where it still hovered.  
  
The gun moved a little slower with each generator lost, and most everybody was watching Jacob's quick handling of the Hammerhead down below. The second Grunt tried to shift over to watch, the shuttle leaned, and the pilot panicked about too much weight on one side of the interior.

Grunt sat back down on the other side, grumbling, “ _Your_ asses could move, you know.”

“We still wouldn't equal one of you, tank boy,” Jack retorted with a laugh.

“Wanna _bet_?”

“Jacob, watch your flank!” Shepard called out, trying to ignore the banter behind her. “Your fans are smoking! Were you hit?”

“No, just overheating a little. I need some room to breathe down here!”

“Take us down, keep it busy!” Shepard whirled about and buckled into a seat. “Move, people!”

Twenty seconds passed with Jacob struggling to get out of the corner by the water where the gun had trapped his overheating Hammerhead. Just as its laser started to grid a lock, the shuttle whirled past it closely, and Shepard shot at the shielding around the station entrance with her Disrupting ammunition.

“It's moving!” Garrus reported, pointing out as the shuttle kept shifting and the massive gun began to follow them instead of Jacob. “Taylor, the engines shot or what?”

“No, they're cooling, I'm good! One last generator shield, bring it this way!”

“Swing there!” Shepard ordered the pilot. “When it tries to lock, go _up_ fast as you can, high as you can!”

“It's moving again, Shepard,” Miranda observed across the shuttle by the open door. “It will lock in a few seconds.”

“Jacob, be ready to destroy that generator!”

“I hear you, Shepard!”

Shepard angled as much as possible in her seat. The instant she saw the red sliding over them, she gave the command to lift. The chain reaction from the shield breaking thirty feet below them was still big enough to rock the shuttle a little with its force, and they all held on, relieved smirks all around when Jacob broke the final pylon.

“Now let's take that thing out!”

“On it! Jacob, go low! Miranda, Garrus, overload that sonuvabitch when we get close!”

The shuttle took off and did a pass by the gun, which stopped following Jacob and tried to follow them instead. Electrical shocks zapped through the gun, disrupting its ability to turn at all, and shots from the Hammerhead and Shepard's pistol peppered the immobilized gun until it burst into pieces.

“Nice,” Garrus commented as he sat back in his seat.

Shepard sighed, relieved with _one_ thing scratched off the seemingly endless list, and the shuttle gently sat down on the landing pad outside of the downed geth ship station. The Hammerhead hovered near, waiting as they all exited the shuttle, and then they swapped positions. Jacob popped the hatch on the left door of the Hammerhead and stepped outside of it, cool, collected, and serious.

Quickly Shepard looked over the teams as they separated in front of her. Her green eyes weighed heavily upon Grunt and Jack, Jacob and then Garrus. His turian blues were fierce and ready.

She smiled, and the four of them nodded, mismatched soldiers all their own. “Keep in contact. Watch your backs. Listen to Garrus like on the Collector base. We'll keep radios open on our end in case of emergency. Have EDI help guide you with this lava crap, and _don't_ overheat those damn fans again and fall into it, for fuck's sake. Not having you all crispy on my watch.”

“Got it, Shepard,” Jacob replied with a salute.

Jack rolled her eyes at him next to her, but she sent Shepard a smirk. “Don't drown in geth, Shepard.”

“Not planning on it.”

“What if there's a prime in there?” Grunt asked. “Won't you need, I don't know, some good krogan _back up_?”

“We'll manage,” Shepard said firmly. “You protect them, Grunt. They may need you to ram some mechs.”

The slit pupils widened the slightest bit on her, but Grunt seemed satisfied with her words. Shepard double checked communications one last time, and she saw Grunt get into the Hammerhead followed by Jack's boot up the side of his head when he wouldn't move over fast enough.

Garrus squinted at it, but he shrugged when he noticed Shepard watching him. “Eh. It's a challenge. I can work with challenge.”

“Fair enough, Garrus. Keep everyone safe. Get the override done as fast as you can.”

“Will do.”

“Jacob?”

“Yeah, Shepard?”

“Watch his six for me,” Shepard murmured, gave Garrus's mandible a loving tug, and turned away where her own team awaited.

Even as she heard the Hammerhead load up and lift away, she somehow  _still_ felt those handsome turian eyes upon her back from the machine's hidden windows.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. Vulcan Station

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.

 

 

  
  


 

Garrus gave Taylor credit—he flew an awkward pile of junk pretty damn well.

The Hammerhead hardly went in a smooth line for long; instead it rose up and down with its momentary seconds of occasionally cooling itself. It bumped into most everything, but it was _fast_ , and it could smash the hell out of a LOKI mech at boosted speed.

All in all, it _could_ be fun. If they weren't on a deadline with the damn rogue VI.

With EDI and the Hammerhead's online VI both advising them, they made their way quickly past beautiful scenery, rock bridges, and through tunneled areas with random mechs and turrets. The more they pushed through the actual volcanic perimeters, the hotter it felt within the machine despite the protective barriers over the metal and lower windows. The sheer power of it all surrounding them cut Archer's last warning about Vulcan Station being silent too long with its significance of geothermal power. EDI stuttered out a second after.

They shot out near a T-junction part of the tunnels, and the first thing Garrus saw down below the cliff edge was lava. Actual fucking _lava_. The Therum flashback was expected, but brief, and his own quiet panic as they nearly landed upon the stream was echoed only by Jacob Taylor. Jack whooped and grabbed ahold of an inner safety bar. Grunt bellowed out in laughter.

“The fans are too hot,” Jacob spoke, clearly debating shoving across with the momentum behind him. “Fifty-fifty chance we hit the other side.”

“Debris in the lava flow can support the Hammerhead's weight,” the vehicle's VI said, as if reading Garrus's thoughts.

Garrus held onto his own safety bar. “Do it.”

Jacob hissed through his teeth as he pulled up fast to avoid any unwanted lava splash and hovered over the rock sliding along the red, hot path. “Setting in three, two...one.”

_Thunk_.

Garrus and Jacob both took breaths when the damn rock didn't _immediately_ sink, flip, or toss them backwards.

“Uh, morons? We're still going down,” Jack grumbled, and Garrus knew she was right. He could _feel_ the physical pull of gravity lowering them. He caught her slap the big armored forearm of the krogan next to her. “Maybe if we didn't have _your_ ass in here. What do you weigh, big boy? Five hundred pounds? Six?”

Grunt growled.

Garrus wanted to growl, too. “Taylor, how much longer until the fans are good?”

Jacob's eyes weren't leaving the sensor readings in front of him. “Two more seconds. And...we're clear!”

The fans spun, the Hammerhead lifted, and Garrus could see from the lower window as the large rock piece sank entirely below the lava. There was another rock farther to his side, and he motioned for it, yelling over the argument in the back seat, “Taylor, follow that one! Rest it just for a second, and then get us across!”

“On it!” Jacob replied, dark eyes determined.

They quickly repeated the process, more of a slighter touch-and-go this time, and the lava flow was cleared. Garrus sighed in relief and checked his line with Shepard, pleased to see it active despite the static still caused by the volcano.

“EDI, talk to me. What's going on up there?” Garrus tried, willing his voice to beat the interruptions to the ship's AI. “I see a vent of some kind. Looks like a smaller station. Taylor, float us up if you can.”

Jacob nodded, boosting carefully and lifting upward with the controls.

“EDI? EDI.”

“S-Sorry, Officer Vakarian, your comm should be clear now.”

“Nice to hear you,” Garrus greeted her. “We take this vent up, but it looks like there's a problem.”

“Yes. The next lift is deactivated. Entering the outpost station should let you fix it.”

“Thanks.” Garrus turned to Jacob as the human gently pulled with the air flow shooting them upwards. “Get inside.”

The Hammerhead hovered in the air for an awkward second past the vent's vertical push, and Taylor slowly steered the vehicle into the outpost bay, settling it down nice and even.

“This it?” Jack asked over Taylor's shoulder. “Seems tiny.”

“Pit stop,” Garrus replied. “You two stay here. Taylor and I can scope this quickly. Do _not_ take this damn thing for a joy ride.”

Grunt looked to Jack amused, and the biotic sighed and sat back in her seat with her arms crossed. “Get going, then.”

Both Garrus and Jacob took the spare seconds they could to stretch their legs from the _very_ cramped space inside the Hammerhead, and then they set off with Jacob on point and Garrus watching from the rear. Jacob's shotgun was raised, Garrus's Mattock to the side behind him in a nine-to-twelve and twelve-to-three manner for safety.

“Automated controls offline.”

Garrus caught Jacob pause and glance about, then shrug. “Localized computer security.”

“Core systems compromised.”

“No shit,” Garrus sighed, but they went through the nearby door and up the stairs, winding against the corner along a hallway.

“Vakarian!” Taylor shouted as the first mech's bullet whizzed past.

“Make 'em float!”

With a harsh flick of his wrist, Jacob sent two powerful spiraling biotic blasts toward the mechs trying to shoot upon their crouched, half around the doorway position. Seconds later the LOKI mechs were floating awkwardly in the air, pulled toward Garrus and Jacob for easier Overloading spread pickings in the tight area. The inoperative metal bodies clanked to the floor heavily with bits of electrical pulses jolting the limbs before going out.

Garrus crushed the hand of one near a pistol that had fallen with it, and they continued forward into the room that had been guarded by the mechs. Garrus stood by the door. “You know Cerberus protocols and whatnot. Check the computer. I'll keep watch in case another mech pops up.”

“Got it,” Taylor complied, moving around Garrus and tapping silently through the holo-keys. “Looks like a valve malfunction. Easy manual reset.”

Garrus's blue eyes didn't move from the hallway. “Time's ticking.”

Jacob snorted. “Done.”

Garrus lowered his Mattock slightly as some power pulsed through the small outpost, traveling through pipes to a vent somewhere outside. “This our last obstacle, EDI?”

“Additional lava flow before Vulcan station,” EDI answered. “Mechs likely inside.”

“You good on that lava, Jacob?”

“Yeah. Figured out the touch on the handles by the second attempt.”

“Good. 'Cause I might like _heat_ over some damn snow, but I'm _not_ getting cooked out there.”

Jacob snickered and gestured for Garrus to head out, both watching carefully with sweeps of their guns. Thankfully no more mechs appeared, and they dashed back down the stairs, through the door, and into the Hammerhead.

“Fuck, took you long enough,” Jack muttered in the back with a sneer.

Jacob rolled his eyes. “Two mechs inside.”

“They took you _that long_?”

“We were gone less than three minutes.”

“Shoulda let me go, love bird. Would have made it thirty _seconds_.”

Garrus shook his head, ignoring the slight bickering of betting once again piping up behind him between the overpowering biotic and equally overpowering krogan. Jacob carefully backed the Hammerhead out of the outpost station and slid around, showing Garrus the now functional vent to lift up again.

“Going _up_ ,” Jacob said, and the stronger vent tossed them right into the air, making Jack cackle.

“All right, all right,” she admitted with a smirk in Garrus's peripheral vision. “This is kinda stupidly fun. _Kinda_. I'm stealing one of these when Shepard stops paying me.”

“I didn't hear that,” Jacob retorted, but Garrus was glad to note the Cerberus operative who'd had his back over the Collector run and on the Collector ship was now focusing intently on his guidance systems and fan stats.

The rock wall was a decent climb, and right as they cleared it, Jacob hit the boost and took off before the power of the vent couldn't support the Hammerhead any longer. Garrus settled into his seat a little more, growing more and more confident in Taylor's capability and natural feel of the vehicle.

A turret tried to pepper their shields ahead on the left, and Jacob flew by it, leaving it spinning about as fast as possible and trying to shoot their tail instead. This time as they pushed onward, Jacob let off the speed, catching onto the plateauing going on with their emergence.

Garrus looked over the VI scans, taking in all the smaller hidden paths cut around the large stream of lava from a fiery waterfall, and he identified Vulcan Station up ahead, nestled dangerously near that molten river. “You see it?”

“Yeah, Vakarian. Looks like we're hopping rocks again.”

“Could let me try. Bet I can fly this thing as good as you can.”

“No more bets,” Garrus said firmly, making Jack smirk. “Okay, Taylor. Take us in. Watch those engines. We're not going down because they overheated.”

“Trust _me_ , I've got my eyes on it,” Jacob replied, hands maneuvering the controls and the vehicle slowly down toward the lava. The bright yellows, reds, and oranges lit up the under windows with their light brightening the entire area of surrounding rock, and Garrus saw debris moving down the flow.

“Some of them aren't big enough,” he pointed out, concerned. “How fast would this thing melt at these temperatures?”

“Danger would be imminent,” the VI said in response.

“A few second window,” EDI countered in Garrus's comm.

Garrus trusted EDI more. “Take no chances. Land twice, three times max. If the engine fans can take it, shoot across after the second jump gets us upstream.”

Jacob lifted up as much as the controls allowed him to do. “Right. We're going against the current, and it's strong. First hop is go.”

Garrus held his breath as Taylor hovered the Hammerhead less than a foot above the closest, biggest piece of debris. It settled for four seconds, and those four seconds felt long enough with how fast the current was and how steep the sinking had already begun on the thinner rock.

“Second hop!”

Jacob gave the engines a blast to hop more into the air, then the briefest half-second boost possible over nothing but lava itself, racing to get to the nearest rock he could up ahead. Too much boost, and they'd overshoot and hit lava. Too little, and they'd _undershoot_ and hit lava.

Jack and Grunt were both quiet, struck by the awesome destructive power of the raw heat below them. Garrus saw hot death through the windows until the dark of the rock obstructed it.

For a moment everyone's breath sucked in as the nose of the Hammerhead went beyond their safety net of landing. And then the middle of it grazed and caught against the rock, holding the bulk of the Hammerhead steady and safe above the moving river of lava.

The heat around them was cooking the damn fans, and Garrus had his eyes on the countdown in front of Jacob. He wasn't the only one. Jack was peeking around the seat, and Grunt was leaned between them, all of them silently counting down the seconds until the vehicle's VI would claim them safe.

And the smaller rock was sinking _fast_.

Garrus didn't look down at the windows. _Couldn't_.

All he could think was that his girlfriend was going to kick his turian ass if his boots got welded to the bottom of the Hammerhead.

Jack, more brilliant than anyone gave her credit for, shoved a barrier out around the Hammerhead and held on, keeping it going even as lava began to splash against the sides of the barrier loudly and made her groan.

Jack's barrier broke as the cool down hit zero. Jacob hit the engines, and with a gravelly shout said, “No more rocks, we're boosting over! Hold on!”

Garrus grabbed for his safety bar, but the instant speed of the boost threw his buckled self backward hard against the headrest, painfully catching his fringe. Grunt laughed behind him, loud enough for Garrus to hear over the roar of the engines and the equal rushing moans of the lava.

The Hammerhead shot diagonally across the river, aiming for the first start of low land hugging the high rock wall next to Vulcan's entrance. Jacob tried to rise more, but the speed was too fast, and the vehicle skidded across the gravel and dirt, the rock and packed soil, loudly and horribly with the fans trying to whirl as Taylor attempted to brake.

Garrus felt the machine drift sideways to a stop, and everyone rocked for a moment with the final bit of inertia slamming through the Hammerhead.

No one spoke at first. Everyone just took deep breaths.

And then Grunt shouted victoriously as Jack pumped her glowing fist into the air.

Garrus and Jacob shared a long, quiet look of _whew_.

EDI's once again broken sound tried to permeate through the static. Garrus couldn't really make out words, but he hoped the AI could on his end. “Tell Shepard we made it to Vulcan. Tell her we'll contact if we can once the override is done.”

“Y-Y-Ye-Yesssss....”

Jack swiped the back of her hand over her lids, smearing some of her black liner. “Hey, idiots, open the doors. It's fucking _hot_ in here.”

“Hotter out _there_.”

“Whatever.”

Jacob pressed the sequence of buttons, and the two side doors opened, venting the bit of stifling heat built up inside the Hammerhead from all the anxiety and sweat into the absolute hell sauna outside.

 

 

 

 

\---------------------------------

 

 

 

“You shoot when you have a clear shot, but not if we have advantage of surprise—you wait on my signal then,” Garrus said inside the bay, his Mantis in his hands. “Above all _listen_ to me, and let's get this done quick.”

The three nodded at him, Jack with her trademark brow quirked up.

“Let's assume mech presence since we found them at the outpost. And let's not make our _biggest_ danger our own bullets in chaos of friendly fire. Call your targets. Clear?”

“Clear,” Jacob answered precisely with a pump of his shotgun.

“All right. I'm keeping the Mantis out for some range with the rest of you being vanguard positions. Taylor, use biotics for mid-range. Jack, you and Grunt have lethal zones and immediate threats.”

“You got that right,” Jack muttered with a half-grin.

Garrus snorted. “Let's go. Jack, take point. Stay _quiet_ first.”

“Yeah, I hear ya.”

Garrus waited until Jack started through a hall, Taylor entering after her. Garrus kept Grunt behind him for the moment so he could _see_ in the tight area, and when they emerged into the next room, he wanted to groan.

Parts of it were broken, and the path around zigzagged a bit with obstacles. Garrus hoped the idea in his head was wrong—that the rogue VI hadn't taken control of the mechs here to gun down any staff the way it had the geth at Hermes. He hoped all the damage was caused by the volcanic activity itself.

At any rate, they couldn't cross immediately. There was too much blockage and debris over the path and pipes.

“Vakarian—looks like a different valve malfunction ahead,” Jacob said softly in front of him. “Want me to check it out?”

“Yeah. Be careful.”

Garrus, Jack, and Grunt kept careful watch as Jacob crept to the valve and, with some quick passes of his omni-tool, tried to reactivate it and fix the malfunction. Garrus nearly jumped when he heard the sound he had earlier with Shepard—the sound of the rogue intelligence _responding_ somehow—and then the vent activated, and debris was blown clear, allowing passage downward to a lower platform.

“Hey, Vakarian, you see that?” Jack asked, glancing that direction.

Garrus followed her eyes and sighed. “Yeah. Taylor, we've got a body.”

“Damn,” Jacob murmured, stepping down from the valve. “At the least we should retrieve the person like we did others earlier.”

“We don't have room in the Hammerhead.”

“No, but we take any bodies near the bay and Cerberus can pick them up later.”

Jack huffed, her shoulder angling. “I say ignore them all. But Shepard'll be pissed, and _I'm_ not getting that rant.”

“Too much talk. I'll get it, pyjacks,” Grunt muttered and stomped as quietly as possible around Garrus and Jack, moving down some of the precarious railing. The younger krogan lifted the poor bastard up, and as he moved to return, some of the catwalk broke under him loudly. Grunt jumped forward, thankfully, and Taylor moved to extend a hand that Grunt ignored as he stepped back up.

Grunt sat the body down near the hallway, and Jacob thanked him.

Garrus nudged his elbow to Grunt's arm. “Explosive container over there. Clear it, we can continue.”

“It's gonna make noise,” Jack warned. “Like, a fuck ton.”

“No choice.”

“Heh,” Grunt nodded. Jack sidestepped the krogan as he passed along the catwalk, and Grunt brought up his Claymore. One blast of the shotgun peppered into the container at a mild distance, and it exploded with force, rattling what they stood on and echoing noise around all the piping in the area.

Garrus blinked a few times, hoping to clear the ringing in his hearing. “You two in front, then Taylor and me. Go.”

Odd metallic clicking and clapping sounds came from above as they ascended over the awkward catwalks and uneven terrain of the messed up room, and Grunt ducked down after crossing up a level.

His icy eye found Garrus below as he was stepping up, Jack and Jacob both crouching by the krogan. “Mechs. Those drone things, too.”

Garrus angled his sniper rifle quietly across some crates and surveyed the oddly sentinel resting robots. “Three drones, maybe a fourth hiding up to the left. Four mechs. Okay. We can set off explosive canisters to destroy them quickly.”

“Where the fuck is the fun in that, Vakarian?” Jack asked him skeptically. “C'mon. We can take a few fucking mechs.”

Grunt nodded readily.

“Oh, fine. Taylor, you and I focus on the drones,” Garrus offered instead. “Incapacitate them with biotics if you need to first. I'll aim for destroying them.”

“And us?” Jack asked, the gleam already in her eye.

Garrus snickered. “You two remove ground threat without making all of this shit collapse under us. Make it quick and dirty.”

Jack grinned. “I knew I liked working with you in that Collector ship for a reason.”

“On my signal,” Garrus said, chuckling under his breath. He took a second to steady himself, aimed through his scope, and zoned in upon the rocket part of the drone at its center; it was something he'd done many times before over the years at Shepard's side.

A second later he pulled the trigger.

The round sped rapidly through the air, smacked into the drone, and exploded it from the center out, setting off every alarm in the area and every mech waiting in prior silent defense. Garrus threw a spreading Overload across the mechs for a moment, allowing Jack and Grunt to climb the cover and move to a middle front position. The LOKI mechs shook off the last zaps of electricity on foot to come directly for them with pistols firing.

Jacob's biotics pulled one of the rocket drones off the back wall before it could get a read on Jack, and Jack's bright blue boot smashed into the chest of the first mech, knocking it backward before her shotgun pulverized its head into pieces.

“Got one! C'mon, big boy, where you at?”

“ _Two_ ,” Grunt yelled to the right, one LOKI corpse under his foot with scrambling fingers still wiggling as the mech in his big fist snapped apart.

Garrus fired his sniper round at a third rocket drone that managed to evade Jacob's fielding to herd them right as Jack climbed up another level and muttered, “Oh, fuck you. Dibs on the last one.”

Jacob snorted loudly next to Garrus as they finished up the last rocket drone together. Jack's shield rippled with bullets as she ran the last LOKI bot down head on, shooting its legs out and shooting its head at close range.

“There,” she grunted in satisfaction. “We're even. Room clear.”

“Wait,” Garrus called, his visor catching the movement he'd wondered about before. The fourth rocket drone came around a metal girder quickly and fired right upon Jack's location, only missing because of her quickness with her barrier. Two shotguns and a Mantis all unloaded on the thing, dropping it instantly.

Jack caught her breath and kicked the drone's metal corpse. “You fuckers. I _had_ it.”

Grunt stepped next to her and bumped her arm.

“Get up to the top floor,” Garrus directed them. “And, Spirits, don't let Grunt fall off of that pipe.”

Jack went up the incline first, light on her feet. Grunt carefully stepped up after her, sneering down at Garrus as he cleared it. And Garrus followed Jacob tiredly, wondering how Shepard did this _all day,_ _every day_.

They followed the path out and found a room on the left with some screens and logs. Jacob tried to track it as Miranda had prior, but the VI's weird green face popped up, and Jacob raised his weapon, his finger hesitating on the trigger in the surprise of the moment. The VI vanished, Jacob exhaled and lowered the gun. He shook his head. “Damn thing locked us out.”

“Let's just keep moving,” Garrus ordered and started back out of the door. He marched them down another longer catwalk to the left of the room, and he caught himself as he nearly rounded the next corner with his visor lighting up immediately. Garrus retreated, flinging his back against the outer wall of the imminent doorway. “Shit.”

“More mechs?” Jacob asked next to him in a whisper.

“Mechs, drones, you name it. I think I even saw one of those bigger mechs.”

“The YMIR line?”

“Yeah.” Garrus closed his blue eyes, remembering one of the scarier moments of the past year when his own foolishness and anger had blinded him enough to nearly get Shepard seriously injured by one of the damn mechs when they went after Harkin. “We gotta watch them. Rockets and gun arm.”

“Plan?”

Garrus turned and summoned everyone closer into a sort of group huddle. “Jack, I want you to serve as distraction for the LOKI. Use biotics to control the chaos and keep shit off its feet. Jacob, you focus on mechs that get past her or Grunt. I'll go for drones. And Grunt...the big mech is yours.”

“ _Good_.”

“If you use a fire grenade, keep it distant enough to spare us any shrapnel. Get the armor weaker with your gun, but _try_ to disable that rocket arm first if you can.” Garrus looked at each member of his small team, finding eyes ready and eager with only Taylor's being calm and calculating still. “Okay, let's do this. Jack, head out. We follow you.”

Grunt gave her a look as she weaved around to Garrus's left.

Jack cracked her fingers and rolled her shoulders, arms swinging loose. “Just don't get in my way.”

And with that said, Jack stepped out into the door way and flung a biotic train of energy that Garrus could hear slap harshly against metal. Grunt broke into a run after her as she dived inside, and Jacob went in by the left and Garrus to the right. Garrus kept back behind a large girder and waited as Jacob took out the LOKI mech closest between them before he chanced a glance with his gun. Farther up to his right Jack had engaged a trio of mechs, and to his left Grunt was crushing another as the YMIR stepped down a small set of stairs.

Garrus lined up a fast shot as the first drone he spied started to move, and he took it out, reloading quickly behind the metal pole as another drone shot at him and missed. The rough sound of scraping metal echoed all around the room, and Garrus heard Grunt _thankfully_ call out his grenade before the krogan threw it at the YMIR's torso. Garrus ducked a piece of metal that went whizzing around, sparing Jacob's farther position to his side, and Jack broke off the arm of one of the mechs she was toying with as she shot the head off another.

Garrus kept his mind as focused on the drones as he could, believing in his team as Jacob moved forward to give Grunt additional power. Another drone down, and one to go, but it kept circling around Grunt and being blocked by the YMIR itself as it tried to pin a shot on the young krogan. Grunt blasted away at the big mech's rocket arm and then used his hand to rip what he could free. Only his boosted shielding kept him momentarily safe from the YMIR's gun at such close range, and Garrus got a line on the last drone just as Jacob covered Grunt in a tight barrier of protection.

Grunt let loose upon the YMIR, kicking and shooting, trying to disable the gun arm as much as he was attempting to knock it back for a better shot at its head. Jacob held onto the barrier as much as he could, but Garrus could hear the tension streaming from the human across the way as the sound of the mini-gun revved back up and peppered Grunt's cocoon of safety.

Quickly Garrus overloaded the drone to paralyze it and fired, his shot trashing it; he moved to swap weapons as fast as possible, aware of Jack leaping back to the left with the rest of the LOKI mechs disabled behind her.

Her heavy biotics knocked the YMIR toward the steps behind it, cutting off the stream of its rattling gun for a second, and Grunt pushed forward, firing a direct Claymore blast to the mech's head. Mattock in hand, Garrus considered moving but saw the head burst apart into a thousand mechanical bits, and then Grunt backed up and Jack leaped away, calling, “It's gonna blow!”

Jacob got back behind the girder on his side for safety. Grunt made it halfway down between them in the room before Jacob's barrier reappeared over him. And Jack skidded in front of Garrus's legs, bent low and awkward with a bubble around the pair of them with the YMIR exploding near that set of steps.

Shrapnel pieces as big as Garrus's bone spurs on his legs shot across the room, and he could hear them bank off the metal behind him and embedding into the floor and parts of the wall. Not a single piece went through Jack's barrier.

Garrus looked down at the tattooed human, proud of her shadowed eyes and dark grin.

Her barrier disappeared as she stood up, and Garrus looked to Jacob and Grunt, checking them over for any pieces of metal. “You guys good?”

“Yeah. Shields would have been _fine_ , you know,” Grunt grumbled Taylor's way.

“Yours hadn't recharged entirely yet,” Jacob argued. “Shepard would scream if you came back with a giant piece of mech in your arm.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Good job, everyone. Override's likely through that door by where the YMIR came through,” Garrus said, interrupting the exchanged look between them. “C'mon. Let's finish this and get back into radio zone.”

Garrus trotted over debris and metal, carrying his Mattock out just in case. The rest followed him around the damaged area from the mech's explosive epicenter, and Garrus padded up the steps and up another set of stairs to his left, his armored boots clanking slightly as he went.

He could see as he cleared the top visually that there was a similar console to what he'd noticed Archer using and showing Shepard earlier at Hermes, but there in front of the damn thing was a single LOKI mech still there.

It was _kicking_ the override set up.

“What the—” Jack questioned behind him, bouncing off of his back as he paused somewhat.

The mech turned as it heard Jack speak, and it did the damnedest thing.

It shook its head with its glowing green interface instead of the normal pinkish red, and then mech held up its hands awkwardly, as if to say, _Don't shoot_.

Garrus gawked at it, but kept his Mattock level.

Jacob and Grunt stepped up behind them, both males apparently just as confused.

Shaken out of her initial shock, Jack blasted one of its arms off.

The mech raised its other arm with the pistol, and Garrus shot that one off next.

And then the entire team moved out of the way as the now more “normal” pinkish mech ran off aimlessly behind them down the stairs, armless and clueless.

“Okay, so that was weird,” Garrus muttered, stepping to the override console. He withdrew the override control, and their bar on the screen vanished off. What kept his eye there was the _still present_ override at Prometheus Station. Garrus exhaled tightly. “Shepard hasn't removed their override yet.”

“That geth ship is bigger than all we just did—even with the travel,” Jacob said, gesturing with a free hand. “Besides, our frequency will clear when we get past the volcano. Contact as we go. Knowing those four I'm sure they're fine.”

Garrus hoped Taylor was right as they all filed out again back into the room of metal scraps. He couldn't shake the feeling in his gut that _something_ was off on Shepard's end of things, no matter how small that feeling was or wasn't.

At least Grunt's removal of the armless mech by tossing it through the air like a javelin made him laugh on the way out.

 

 

 

 


	9. Prometheus Station

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.

 

  
  


  
  


  
The instant they were all inside Prometheus Station, Shepard shuddered. Just a little.

The place immediately gave her the heebie-jeebies the way only vacant geth ships could, and the creepy atmosphere inside the station reminded her _too much_ of them trying to not set off alarms while helping Legion before.

It did _not_ help that the station's computerized greeting kindly reminded her of liability for her own death or injuries that she may incur while inside.

So, yes, the last time she'd been on foot in a geth station had not been good. And she just hoped to hell this one was gonna be better, because she was not volunteering for a third ship exploration.

As soon as they entered into an area with cargo and ramps leading upstairs, Shepard's green eyes rounded. There, in the center of the room, stood a geth prime behind a shield. Just standing. Not moving.

“Legion,” Shepard warned, not blinking just _in_ _case_.

Her friendly geth stepped to her right as Tali circled to her left and Miranda stayed behind them. Tali looked as nervous as Shepard felt. “Shepard...it's on display, but why?”

“Not sure. Some Cerberus mental game, Miri?”

“Strangely enough, I don't quite think so,” Miranda answered, wandering a moment to a nearby computer and checking it.

“This unit was likely already deactivated,” Legion spoke up, his mechanical brows twitching.

Shepard blew out her held breath. “That mean the rest might be?”

“Yes, Shepard-Commander.”

“Fantastic. Let's go.”

They queued up the ramp, each of them keeping an eye on the eerily silent prime as they stepped; up and around past some more monitors, a sound broke the quiet of the room as the rogue VI screeched from a green face once more against the screens. Shepard's heart rate spiked a bit from the suddenness of it, but her training kicked in, her pistol aimed level and ready at one of the faces the second before it immediately began to vanish again.

“Did it just say to 'make it stop' or I'm a going crazy, Shepard?” Tali questioned beside her. “You heard that, right?”

Shepard relaxed her pistol's aim with the room empty of the VI's face. “Tali, I don't think you're crazy. It definitely said _something_.”

“Creator Tali'Zorah is correct, Shepard-Commander. This unit has recorded the sound clip and can play it back.”

“I'll just take your word for it, Legion,” Shepard muttered and motioned for Miranda to move up front with her. “Legion, cover us in case of any surprises with the geth and this damn VI. Tali, you've got the back. Drone out. I _do not_ trust this.”

At those words the squad snapped together, the seriousness in their forms doubling with the squint of Shepard's stare. As a team they finished the ramp and exited into a new hallway. Miranda's SMG made quick work of another green-lit camera, and Shepard's jaw locked with each measured step they took forward.

They made it barely halfway down the hall before the entire area shook hard, as if with earthquaking tremors. Shepard caught her balance, and Miranda quickly put a barrier above them with her hand for some loose shrapnel from the already partially broken ship to scatter harmlessly down and around.

The shaking stopped almost as abruptly as it hit.

Shepard controlled her breathing. “I _do not_ like this. EDI, what the fuck was that?”

“Tremors from volcanic activity, Commander. It's most logically the cause besides the ship already being damaged with structure issues.”

“Can you pick up anything from Garrus?”

There was a minute pause in the AI's voice, but she replied, “They've hit an outpost barrier in their journey, but should pass it shortly. An environmental issue to let them pass. The connection to them isn't strong with the volcano's disruption.”

Shepard looked up out of habit. “Track it. I want to know developments.”

“Yes, Shepard.”

“To the left here, Shepard,” Miranda gestured with her head to a door.

Shepard walked up to it and watched it part automatically. Cautiously, she went down the ramp, the team behind her, and through another doorway at the bottom. A corridor went from her left to her right. Quickly she had Miranda scout the small area to their left, and then as a group they continued to the right, Tali's little purple drone out hovering around Shepard and the front position.  
  
Open doors seemed to close on their own. The creepy echo of groaning metal wrapped around each soft _tap_ of their feet, and Shepard paused at a terminal, listening to recording that felt _uncomfortably_ like some of those she'd heard upon the derelict Reaper. Not that someone running about with geth parts for Halloween was indoctrination, but the tone of the researcher recording it felt off. A bit dull even in expression hatred, oddly enough.

Shepard began to wonder if the ever present underlying horror of the geth ship's shaping had created a hidden psychological effect on organic human brains working inside of it.

Another door to the right behind the terminal. Another ramp down. This one led to some actual ship damage, enough to be a slight obstacle to their right where a structure beam of some kind had fallen to the flooring. Shepard climbed over it and poked about a few rooms, disturbed by the site of geth troopers silently sitting on the floor in a disabled state.

“Commander,” Miranda called, catching her attention.

Shepard vaulted back over the beam. “What?”

“We've got a body, here.”

“Fuck,” she murmured, stepping up to see the Cerberus employee on the ground.

The terminal next to him explained that Archer had called for lockdowns, but that the virus, the VI, had already hit Prometheus. “What does it want?” the man had asked, frustratedly. “It just keeps screaming!”

Tali clutched her shotgun. “I _knew_ it.”

Shepard closed her eyes. “Okay, you three. There's something Archer said that I hadn't disclosed yet, mostly because...mostly because I was _hoping_ my gut would be wrong. But now...now I don't think so.”

Miranda turned from the console and put a hand on her hip. “What's the information?”

Shepard looked to each of her squad mates, all of them hyper focused upon her. “The VI was a project for control, a study done using an autistic human mathematical savant. Archer's own little _brother_. He seemed to feel the geth had been communicating with David via arithmetic, and then...this VI creation idea hit. Why not use the kid to control geth? Capitalize on it? The Illusive Man apparently green lit everything, and Archer was worried about it the resulting VI taking over things, but he _did not_ explain how it could overwhelm David himself. He just seemed guilty. Regretful. But this? What we heard up there? There was _inflection_ , right? You all _heard_ emotion.”

“Yes,” Miranda immediately confirmed. “There was inflection, absolutely.”

“Shepard, are you saying this VI might...be running _through_ his brother somehow?” Tali asked, horrified. “ _Keelah_. Cerberus is worse than I thought.”

Shepard exhaled long and slow, eyes tight on Miranda's own angry blues. “If this isn't just some VI, if it isn't just some _virus_ we can kill, then there's a human life at stake. Not just ours, but a complete innocent. Someone who can't even defend himself against what has been _done_ to him already.”

“The virus enabled the VI to control other geth units to attack us, Shepard-Commander.”

“Yes, Legion. But _you_ don't understand what an autistic existence could be like,” Shepard tried to explain to the geth at her right. “It varies per person's situation, but...fear can manifest. Struggle can manifest in different ways when they can't express themselves or they feel overstimulated. And fear or struggle means loss of control, possibly, to whatever is pressuring him. Or, on the flip side of that, it means David possibly accidentally hurting people by trying to get our attention in his panic. It's a spectrum, but...it makes sense as a reason for some of this, doesn't it? The damn _satellite_ may not have just been a virus wanting to leap, but a human in panic trapped within electronic influence and reach.”

Miranda stamped her heel. “Son of a bitch. I'm going to have a _word_ with the Illusive Man and this _Archer_.”  
  
“Get in line, Miri,” Shepard grumbled. “I want to confirm this somehow before we meet back up with Garrus and the rest. We may have to modify our mission target.”

Tali glanced about, white eyes searching through the purple tint of her helmet. “Should we still shoot the cameras?”

Shepard glanced at one nearby. “Not yet. These deactivated geth get up and start walking, you pop each one of those you see. Got me? It might _not_ be David's intention to hurt us, if he's part of this, but he _could_ regardless by trying to usher us.”

“Shepard-Commander, the amount of geth present are fewer than would have been expected due to platforms from the ship being accounted for across other stations,” Legion offered with a little shrug. “Caution is still advised.”

“Gotcha. Let's move,” Shepard demanded, then jolted as the ship shuddered yet again, this time almost knocking her over mid-step. “ _Fuck_. We need to move quicker. C'mon, people.”

With the team on her heels, Shepard entered the door in front of them. They emerged into a larger area, one with a second level open above it. It reminded Shepard slightly of an Alliance cafeteria area, just with the hints of nearby rooms and a more open middle with a ramp going up above in the space. But other than that, it was all inorganic. All strange.

“Shepard,” Miranda urged upon seeing yet another terminal. Her XO activated the last log, and Shepard listened to the prior employee explaining how it felt the VI was herding people with doors opening and closing. “Commander, I don't think your gut is wrong.”

“So now it's just how much of an influence is upon David and how much is upon the VI program or virus part itself.”

“Seems like.”

Forward up a slight ramp and through another door, they finally found a more central location of both the operations—a very large, very open area full of broken ship. The Prometheus Station computer began playing _awful_ music as “approved for listening station wide,” but if Cerberus thought it would _de-stress_ its employees by doing so, then the organization was dead fucking wrong. Or, even more likely, the sound, too, was a study of some effect.

Shepard crossed some flooring and realized several large floor panels were missing to get to some computer equipment. Miranda, thankfully, looked about for a moment and stepped up a bit to the left.

“S'that?” Shepard asked, cringing inside with the music playing against her voice.

“It appears to control some of the flooring to let us cross. Suggests the station was this badly damaged when they began to try using it and removing geth platforms.”

“Idiots,” Shepard sighed tiredly, but waited patiently until Miranda got the controls to work for a straight path ahead. “Thanks, Miri. You come with me. The override's gotta be over there. Tali, stay right here. I want you able to get us out if we get stuck over there and the panels realign. Legion, cover Tali and us.”

“Okay, Shepard,” Tali confirmed, taking Miranda's spot as her XO stepped down to her side once more. Legion walked up to stand by Tali, its light peering down its Widow's scope for a moment to check the area.

Shepard shook off the nerves and strode ahead over the currently stable platforms, but inside she just was hoping there wouldn't be another tremor that could send her and Miranda both off of them and into who knew what.

Sure enough as they traversed the panels, Shepard recognized the override station from the one at Hermes with Archer. She frowned when she noticed Vulcan's was still active. “EDI, did you hear from Garrus yet?”

“The team made it to Vulcan. There were...lava...considerations. I believe they're close to the override as we speak.”

Shepard sighed in relief. “Thank god. Miri, let's override this station.”

Miranda moved to watch her back as Shepard reached for the control and operated it, resetting the override halfway, but not completely to clear it off the screen.

A flick of green crossed the holo-screen and easily made her pause.

Shepard stopped, hand holding the switch, eyes huge on a Cerberus body nearby and a deactivated geth next to it. She stopped and stared because she could have _sworn_ its foot had just twitched.

She inhaled. “Miri, did...you...see?”

Miranda's eyes were on it, too, along with the aim of her SMG. “Yes.”

“Shepard?” Tali wondered in her comm.

She swallowed harshly. “Tali, I want you to listen to me. Carefully. When I finish this override, I think the VI's gonna act out. There's a geth over here with us. Look about yourselves to prepare for any near you. They may immediately go active.”

“Shepard-Commander, this unit has a direct shot if Operative Lawson moves position.”

“Negative, Legion. You watch that damn door. Miranda can deal with this thing.”

“Damn right I can,” Miranda said with a roll of her shoulders and a squint of her eye. “I've got your back, Shepard. Finish the override.”

“All right,” Shepard replied and looked back to the screen. The bar that had been across by Vulcan Station's name was gone. She grinned. “They did it. EDI, get them back to Hermes Station. We'll meet them there when we're done.”

“Yes, Commander,” the AI copied and went quiet.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Here goes. Once this is done, the VI has control of the station again. That means more than cameras. That means doors and geth. Be on guard.”

The override control moved, the bar slowly went down to nothing, and Prometheus Station was cleared. And the second Shepard stood back with her pistol already in hand, the green face appeared clearly on the screen and screamed once again.

Miranda's gun instantly fired behind her three times, three sets of SMG rounds, and Shepard heard the distinctive sound of a geth trooper's flashlight head popping apart.

The VI wailed, and Shepard stared it down as alarms began to blare.  
  
“I'm coming, David,” she declared to it, unafraid as it blinked out.

Shepard ran for it, Miranda hot on her heels. They caught up with Tali and Legion by the door, and Shepard pushed through as the ship rocked harder and parts of it cracked and broke around them, releasing steam and even more shrieking alarms amidst the warning of the Cerberus computer telling them to watch for active geth.

“No _shit_ ,” Shepard snapped, cloaking at the last second before a geth rifle round almost sizzled across the side of her face with the door before her opening. “Jesus _Christ_! Watch it!”

Miranda threw out a quick barrier, long enough for them to all slide before a large queue of crates. Tali's drone was out and firing back before any of them could.

“I want Overloads. I want _tech, tech, tech_!”

“Yes, Shepard!” Tali and Miranda both shouted in response to her shriek.

Shepard went around the cover in her cloak, using the curved walls of the weird cafeteria-like area to her advantage for potshots on geth troopers. The shields of the nearest troopers dropped between her three team mates, and Shepard blew the head off of one trooper and the wrist supporting the rifle off of another. Her own tech she utilized the same way with her targeted shots, and together the team followed as she infiltrated a path over “window” like open areas of walls.

Quickly she realized they'd have to go _up_ the ramp this time with some of the station already closing off under the VI's control. The problem with that was the damn rocket trooper above them.

“Legion! Take it _out_!”

Her ally geth didn't reply. It simply _listened_. The loud _crack_ of the Widow hit her ears, and Shepard, cloaked and crouched near the bottom of the ramp, saw a peeking rocket trooper get flung back from the force of the round through its head.

“ _That's_ how you do it!” Shepard commended it, proud as hell.

Tali's drone went up the ramp and kept another regular trooper occupied before Shepard realized they had to cross another ramp horizontally into oncoming fire. She darted quickly upward, sliding like an old time athlete on her ass and side through a small room's doorless entryway at the top just in time for her cloak to flicker off with a recharge and geth up across the way to start shooting at her.

Shepard gathered her limbs to her core, wincing as bullets broke material of walls around her, spitting pieces of shrapnel about that bounced off of her shielding. She counted in her head, waited for more sounds of Miranda's tech and Tali's shotgun coming closer, and she leaned around the edge of that open entrance she'd slid through and aimed an incineration tech at a rocket trooper just about to fire. The rocket exploded, and the trooper was blasted backwards. The pressure of it added to some minor jostling of the ship again, but the distraction she'd provided was enough for her team to make it up and in the room with her.

“Legion, what else is out there?” she asked, catching her breath.

“A hunter. And a destroyer.”

“Okay. EDI, tell Garrus we're getting close to being out! Tali, send the drone again. Legion, yours, too. Distract the hunter and take it out; drain it if you can at first, Tali. Miri, you and I have the destroyer. I'll use my own draining tech on it.”

“Let's go,” Miranda nodded, crouched and ready.

Shepard exhaled and spurred herself around the entry way, back out onto the ramp area and ran, Miranda right behind. Two friendly drones flew past her, immediately focusing upon a geth hunter that materialized as they started to zap and fire at it. The destroyer kept its aim right on Shepard and Miranda.

Miranda threw an Overload over part of its powerful shield as Shepard sapped the rest of it, and both of them fired, bullets tearing at least one arm off and halting its attack cold. Miranda flung a biotic slam over the destroyer and smashed it apart as Tali's shotgun and Legion's Widow both sounded to their left by the hunter.

Shepard didn't stop.

Down a ramp, through another door.

More shaking of the ship, the screech of the metal harsh on their hearing.

An entire column fell before them, and Shepard backed up momentarily, checking for another one. A handful of troopers appeared out of the room next to its downed location, and a hunter's shield caught her eye before it vanished from sight.

They worked in sync, each calling targets and activating tech support for recharges to fall one after another in continuous cycle, and between the four of them and two drones, the geth platforms went down in mere blinks of an eye.

Boots crunched the geth bodies. Arms shoved them over debris through gaps to get to another door. And the computer could only warn them of the geth activity increasing.

Shepard knew they were going to get the hell out of here. Too much was riding on them not to do so. David needed their help. Archer, even, needed their help. Garrus needed _her_. But she wondered as she dodged bullets and took more cover in the next hall if some of her strange luck might run out a smidge the closer they got back to their entrance.

 _Especially_ when she remembered that damn prime right near the fucking front door.

“Oh _shit_ ,” Shepard groaned over gunfire. “Hey! We'll be coming back to the entrance, and that means that damn prime is gonna be up and running. Be _ready_!”  
  
The endless purple-gray of the ship walls blurred with each hall passed and every duck and jump around the shaking, breaking interior, and when they arrived back out into the bay with the prime, all hell had already broken loose.

Rocket troopers were positioned along the ramp's path on their level. Troopers marched around below. A hunter cloaked at the closest spot near them. And the prime was stomping about, trying to get a clear shot with its height to reach their location.

Tali and Legion's drones deployed to agitate the rocket troopers and those filing up the ramp. Miranda kicked out at the hunter's middle, knocking it back and breaking its cloak effect as she took it head on with Tali to cover her. And Shepard and Legion took turns sniping with their Widows, picking off the smaller troopers to concentrate on the prime.

Chaos had been the Collector base. And while this wasn't _as_ insanely chaotic as any of that, it was tight, hot, and still a boiling pot of panic all its own.

Miranda had already progressed around the ramp a bit with Tali, her XO using a biotic defense for them and Tali hacking closest geth while her drone and her shotgun cleaned house. So when the prime maneuvered below to shoot upward at her corner with Legion, Shepard knew they were stuck.

Instincts took over, and Shepard naturally shoved her friendly geth slightly down the ramp behind safe cover. It hadn't crossed her mind that the damn thing had a gaping _hole_ in her old armor on its chest and that its shield was much stronger than hers. Her need to protect had kicked in, her fury had risen, and not even a damn AI would be lost on _her end_ today.

Her shielding immediately burst with the rapid fire of the prime's gun, and Shepard hit the ground in the corner, shouting in pain from one bullet burning a path along the side of her head, ripping some strands of hair and making her bleed from the burning wound trail it left just above her ear to her brow before it smacked into the wall opposite her.

Shepard listened to the nightmare of geth sounds and gunshots, of her team's valiant aggressive stances and the responding shattering of metal, and she took a single, deep breath. She centered, thinking of Thane and space, thinking of Caios and his breathing exercises in her past, and her shield came back online just as her cloak did.

Shepard didn't hesitate.

Her cloak activated as the prime turned to follow Miranda and Tali around the edge across the way. Overloads zapped the big tank's shielding, draining tech took the rest, and a sabotage attempt from Legion stuttered the prime long enough for Shepard to leap, pistol out. She landed upon its back and fired three rapid rounds into its big head, killing it instantly.

Gravity took it from there.

Everything groaned and swayed, and Shepard's cloak switched off as she tried to push off from behind the prime; it fell with a loud, jarring crash to the floor and tossed her backward to fall just the same with a harsh thud.

But unlike a dead prime, Shepard had been knocked on her ass by Garrus in a spar once. And she knew how to take that kind of hit.

The wind knocked out of her, and she gasped for air, but she was able to get up as her team hit the bottom floor and ran to her spot. Arms quickly pulled her to her feet, practically dragging her at first, and then Shepard hot-footed it from there with her squad out the entrance of Prometheus Station and back to the shuttle as the ship grumbled and shook one last time, giving her what she hoped was the _last_ Therum flashback she'd ever have in her life.

 

   
  
  


 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [I'm disclosing that my own younger brother is autistic.  
> What is done to David in this DLC angers me in a way I cannot express.  
> That pistol slap is coming, believe me.]


	10. The Horror of Atlas Station

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Garrus—”

“Shepard,” he spoke over the comms in the Hammerhead, relieved as they shot out the last set of tunnels past the second lava stream. “Everything okay?”

“Fine, Garrus. Meet us at Atlas Station. Archer said he thinks the VI is gonna direct upload from there.”

“She got grazed. Bleeding slightly from the side of her head,” Tali interrupted in the channel, making Garrus's heart race horribly. “ _I'm_ telling you so you don't get here and panic when you smell it, Garrus.”

“ _Tali_.”

“Shepard, you weren't going to say anything!”

“Because I'm _fine_. It's just a hot scratch, if you will. Damn prime.”

“Prime?” Grunt grumbled from the back seat. “Should have brought _me_ , stupid.”

Garrus's mandibles twitched with frustration and worry. “Shepard, what happened?”

Shepard sighed over the stronger connection. “The VI activated geth platforms after the override. The ship was breaking apart worse as we were trying to get out. Prime at the door with a rifle. I got grazed. I'm fine.”

“ _Shepard_. You _jumped_ on top of its _back_!”

“Tali'Zorah, _shush_!”  
  
“Then you both went _down._ ”

“Listen here, you—”

“Shepard-Commander, we are approaching destination.”

“Yeah, Legion, yeah. Jacob, you guys close yet?”

“They're on our radar, Shepard. See the blip there?”

“Thanks, Miri.”

Subharmonics stuck somewhere between amusement and bafflement, Garrus just blinked, catching Taylor staring at him before tossing his head to Jack's laugh of appreciation behind his seat. Blue eyes snapped to the upper windows, and Garrus could make out a station as they passed through some veil of water.

“We're here,” he muttered into his girlfriend's private comm channel. “And you are _so_ busted.”

Shepard didn't get the chance to reply. The second Taylor landed the Hammerhead, Garrus was out of it and stomping over, his nose _already_ picking up the unique hints of her blood even at the adjacent distance of the shuttle on the landing pad near the station's entrance. His hormones rushed a bit with tension, the need to check her strong, and he pushed past Legion and a sheepishly posed Tali to consider Shepard where she was bent looking at something over her omni-tool with Miranda.

“Ahem,” he grunted, crossing his arms.

Shepard shrugged, but listened to his turian growl of demand and tilted her face to the side for him to see the wound. A red streak of raw skin was exposed just above her ear partway forward across her cheek. It had a touch of medi-gel on it for safety, shining a little with the gel's texture. Some dried blood had remained down part of her cheek and over her ear, blending with more of her hair.

So, yeah, she was fine.

But she _really_ might not have been.

Garrus exhaled, furious. “Even a millimeter's difference, and you'd be dead.”

Shepard closed her omni-tool off and stepped closer, the rest giving them a moment of privacy. Her green eyes were sympathetic and apologetic, her freckle spots too damn cute and distracting him from his grumbling. “I know, Garrus.”

“Any concussion from the fall?”

“No. Just wanted out of there fast. Too many Therum flashbacks, you know?”

“Shit. I'm the one who flew over _lava_.”

Shepard snorted and patted his armored shoulder. “And we're okay. Now let's focus.”

He sighed, nodded, and briefly nuzzled her hair before stepping back with the others to listen for briefing. Jack and Grunt both seemed recharged from their bit of fun at Vulcan and were ready to destroy things again, Taylor frowned at a tight look in Lawson's eyes, and Garrus could _sense_ the tension within Shepard as if it were his own, his senses so tuned to her by now.

It had been a _long_ fucking day already, and it was barely cracking six by his watch. Tonight was going to be a rough one needing, at the least, a sizable hot shower, a big round of chow, and either some meds from Doc or some heavy dextro-liquor.

Shepard cleared her throat and the group silenced, standing still to listen.

Her eyes closed. “My team is aware of what's going on more than yours, Garrus. I'd had a hunch earlier, but until we heard some things in our digging at Prometheus, I didn't want to spread anything that might be false intuition on my part. But here's the thing—this VI has some human intelligence behind it.”

“Archer created it. Of course,” Taylor supplied, confused.

“No, Jacob,” Miranda corrected him, again looking tight about the eyes as if angry and suppressing it. “ _Vulnerable_ human intelligence.”

Garrus's head would have swung to Shepard's flash of determined ferocity had Jack's fist not started glowing first and her boot slammed down between she and Miranda. The tattooed biotic breathed heavily. “If this is another fuckin' facility like mine was, you're _dead_ , Cheerleader.”

“Jack,” Shepard warned, stepping closer to Jack's side near Garrus. “Miranda has nothing to do with this place, and she's just as pissed at the idea. It's not exactly like Pragia. But it does seem there was experimentation involving a young, gifted man who could work math well enough to communicate with geth. He's autistic, and I've no doubt he was taken complete advantage of by all. We just don't know how far it's gone.”

Jack's enraged dark eyes clashed with Shepard's flaming emeralds. “Shepard.”

Shepard, without hesitation, calmly put her hand over Jack's _still_ glowing fist. “We are gonna find him, Jack. We're gonna get him out of here. And we're going to send a message. Don't worry about that. But I need _you_ to focus so we can. Got me?”

Garrus shook his head, pissed, and looked to Taylor with frustration. “What is it with Cerberus, huh? _What_ is it?”

Taylor ground his teeth. “Not my cell, not my department, but I'm quickly starting to consider a career change.”

Out of curiosity, Garrus looked to Lawson. He was both shocked and yet...almost not somehow...by the growing agreement in her eyes.

“Anyway, people, we need to stop the VI, yes. We don't want a rogue entity spreading control of itself. But we also don't know much _about it_. Archer told me it's connected with his younger brother, David, somehow. It wants to kill us, David wants help, wires are crossing and we're getting green screaming faces and bullets. So we stop the VI, and we save David. And then we _all_ get the hell out of _here_.”

“What about this fucking doctor, Shepard?” Jack demanded hotly. “Thinking about putting him on your ship, too?”

Shepard glared. “ _No_. He finds his _own_ way. Not like there'll be anything dangerous left when we're done.”  
  
“ _Good_.”

Garrus could feel Shepard's temper held right at the surface. His own, honestly, wasn't hidden much less. “So, what's the plan, Shepard?”

“I want a small team with me. I want the shuttle back up safe with the ship for now. I want the rest of you on board in case shit goes haywire with EDI and this VI,” Shepard said and swept her eyes over them. “Miranda, Garrus, Jack, you come with me. Jacob, you help Joker. Grunt go with him and be sure our shuttle stands by for redeployment. Tali, keep an eye on Legion with this VI. Legion...I trust you. I just want you safe, like I want EDI safe.”

“Thank you, Shepard,” EDI spoke across all their omni-tools.

Shepard nodded at the absent AI and the friendly geth with its understanding little moving brows. The group split up, and Garrus followed with Miranda at his side into the entrance, Shepard and Jack at the front talking quietly; Shepard kept Jack steady with instructions in an even, but deep tone, as if registering exactly what Jack needed somehow.

Jack didn't notice the way Miranda was looking at her right then, but Garrus did, and he'd remember it always—an expression of regret and walled away sorrow.

 

 

 

\-------------------------------

 

  
  
With Garrus and Miranda for back up tech support and Jack around for monitoring and explosive ass kicking, Shepard felt ready for just about anything as they entered into Atlas Station. They crossed an inner landing pad, a walkway, and entered into an initial intake area with Dr. Archer's voice back in her ear.

“It's as I feared, Commander. The readings are holding. The VI is trying to directly upload from your location! It's got full control of the station. Be _careful_!”

“Dealing with it, Archer. Just hold on.” Shepard nodded toward a computer nearby to check for a green face, and Miranda immediately looked it over. “Log?”

“Yes, Shepard.”

“Play it.”

“...Archer's log. My brother's condition has been a handicap for so long. But, today, that has changed.”

“Swipe it for evidence, then shoot that fucking thing,” Shepard snarled and moved forward, a deadly silent Jack by her side looking as furious. “ _Goddamn_ it.”

She could feel Garrus's worried eyes on her back, but Shepard didn't have the time to soak it in and breathe. She had to keep moving. There was a VI to halt, but more importantly, there was an innocent human's life on the line somewhere.

The door ahead was glowing red with its holo lock. Shepard took a step to the empty room on her right, and the doors to it suddenly shut themselves, and the prior red holo-lock ahead of them lit up green. Not a good sign.

“Shit,” she whispered under her breath as they quickly stepped down the stairs. “Okay, now where?”

“Camera to the left,” Garrus murmured, and Shepard saw it through the half-busted halls and broken lighting.

She swiftly moved, pistol raised in preparation for any geth controlled enemies, and led her group down another small corridor to an end with three doors. Each holo-lock lit up in an alternating sequence of red, green, and orange back and forth so fast it almost made her dizzy to watch it. And then, finally, the door on their left opened.

They entered what appeared to be a small lab or at the least an observation room with its split-level set up. An elevator was across the room, down either set of stairs to the sides. Miranda found another log, activated it, and Archer's voice immediately sounded off again with worry about pressure from the Illusive Man for results and how, according to this _wonderful_ doctor, he had “no choice.”

The look on Shepard's face was as sour as Jack's, and Miranda silenced the log, swiping it to her omni-tool as well for evidence. Garrus kept to her back, protective and very quiet except for the faint subharmonic sounds she could hear telling her he felt her stress.

She owed him a big hug later.

“Let's get the elevator,” she declared and ran down the right side to activate it.

But the elevator only moved a floor.

“The VI's tied it to other computers, here,” Miranda muttered, standing near another desk she'd been scanning for logs. “Let's see what this does.”

“Resetting elevator,” the station's computerized monitor said.

Shepard flicked her eyes back up the second level. “It's a puzzle. The VI clearly doesn't want us getting to David. So let's figure it out, and fast.”

Garrus moved for another computer upstairs, and after she hit the summons again, he activated his end of things. The elevator moved five floors, but they needed the seventh, so Shepard hit the summons by her again, hoping it would work.

Thankfully it did, but it didn't come up empty.

Shepard could _hear_ the geth on the other side of the doors already trying to melt the seals apart to shoot them, and she called out a warning for people to get down. She stuck herself by Garrus up the stairs, moving as fast as she could with her cloak, and Jack and Miranda kept to the bottom level, biotics both strong and prepared.

Jack's uncharacteristic quiet had prevailed for the last few minutes, and it scared her.

Shepard didn't know when the explosion was gonna happen with her felon friend, but she sure hoped it was a controlled one when it would finally let loose.

The doors opened to the elevator and a fucking geth prime began firing immediately with two troopers flanking its sides.

“Miranda, Garrus, take out those shields. Jack, get the troopers off their feet!”

“You got it,” Garrus replied next to her, leaning over the desks covering them on their level and sending out his gorgeously effective overloading spread.

Miranda's heavier tech caused the prime to screech out, and Jack shouted with energy, her biotics pulling the troopers off their feet. She slammed them all about the inside of the elevator, then yanked them forward as Shepard was shooting the prime's head. The geth all tumbled to the front, the troopers broken and useless and the prime struggling to get back up. Miranda's power kept it down, Garrus's concussive round shattered a metallic knee, and Shepard and Jack blasted the hell out of it with their guns.

When it stopped moving, they each stepped over top of it and into the elevator, a blast of power from Jack tossing the metal bodies through the room out of the doors' way.

Shepard hit the elevator activation once everyone was standing inside on the large platform, and it slowly began to ride down to level six.

“C-C-Commander!” EDI got out before the now familiar sound of David's humanoid voice broke, begging them to make it stop.

The elevator floor began to ride up and down erratically, going so fast and harshly that Shepard and Miranda went to their knees. Garrus was tight against the back, armor scratching along the elevator's upward tunnel, and Jack, the pissed off adrenaline junkie, had both boots planted space apart and was riding the high of the moment with a dark smirk.

“Hold on!” she managed to shout over the station's computer's ridiculous warnings.

The elevator went up one more time before it was sent crashing down several floors, and Shepard, for one, was fucking grateful she'd already dropped to a knee. Every person's shielding broke with the hit, and Jack hissed out in pain from the sudden hard connection beneath her feet. Shepard quickly checked Miranda nearby and Garrus slightly behind her, finding both of them okay, though mildly shaken up.

“Get out of here,” Shepard barked and sucked in a breath of energy to dart forward out of the elevator while she still could. The second she slid into the awaiting room, she had her pistol out and began firing instinctively, breathing heavily when the geth platforms hooked up to machines in the room simply fell down, inactive, from her shots.

“The fuck?” Jack asked to her left, scanning the room.

Miranda came forward and toed one of the geth troopers Shepard had shot down. Her cold blue eyes scanned the few on the other side of the room still hooked up. “Looks like the method of communication.”

“That it does,” Shepard agreed, shooting the remaining geth down for comfort's sake.

Garrus sighed behind her with a head shake. “Let's keep moving.”

“Another log, Shepard. I bet from that fucking piece of shit doctor.”

“Miranda will get it, Jack. Don't blow the console yet.”

Shepard's eyes could only close when Miranda played the first part of Archer's log before transferring it, an apology in her expression there for Shepard to witness. He'd lamented, but not really, the truth that harm would likely come to his brother with the experiment. Clearly the idea hadn't stopped Archer then, and the evidence of his apparent allowance of what had happened was all about them.

She wanted to _shake_ that man so fucking much. “EDI, are we getting close? EDI?”

Miranda elbowed Shepard. “She's cut out on my end. Since the elevator. Just static. I think it's the VI's upload interference.”

“Fuck. Fine, c'mon,” Shepard urged when she saw a clear hall and a green-lit lock on the door at the opposite end. “Gotta be getting close.”

Her team ran behind her, their heavy steps all echoing down the hall together, and as one they all managed to slide to a stop in absolute shock once they reached the other side.

The green holo-lock literally lifted off the door and transported itself to the left along the wall to another door they'd passed.

A feeling hit Shepard that she imagined might not be too unlike a human ingesting a full dextro meal—the worst sinking, awful feeling that made her guts twist and turn and her intuition hope for reality to start up again in the surreal moment.

The door to their left quietly opened. As if waiting for them.

“I don't like this, A.,” Garrus almost snarled. “Instincts are _not_ okay with this.”

“Same here,” Miranda agreed, gun still very ready in her grip.

Jack rolled her eyes. “Wimps. Let's go, Shepard. Destroy this thing.”

Shepard steadied her nerves and made sure to step into the room first, her green eyes scanning for any immediate threat. But in front of her was simply a console. A glowing, patient console, needing a command.

Garrus swept in on her right, Miranda to her left, and Jack around Garrus's side.

Garrus stared at her. “Shepard, you're not gonna just _push_ the button, right? We don't even know what the fuck it does.”

“He's got a point,” Miranda murmured, “but it's...the only lead we have. Clearly the VI wants us to interact with it.”

“Either you push it or I do,” Jack argued hotly. “We're gonna kill this thing so we can shoot that fucking doctor. Give him a fuckin' limp to remember us by.”

Shepard's look silenced Jack, thankfully, but she doubted it would for long. “I have you all here. We don't know what will happen. This stupid button could summon Reapers for all I know. So guns out, eyes open. Be prepared.”

Garrus exhaled, but accepted the decision with trust in his handsome gaze.

Shepard sent him a small smile, took a breath, and reached forward.

The instant the glowing button responded to her command, the console brightened, and the face of the VI appeared large in front of them.

Miranda, Jack, and Garrus all three had guns aimed right at it in a heartbeat. But not one of them could fire, not when bright green light appeared through the console and over Shepard's arm and body, sending _intense_ electrical pulses through every part of her nervous system and slamming into her brain.  
  
“Shit!” she heard Garrus shouting next to her, but his voice was wrong. Digitized.

The odd glow and holo-dissolving texture of the VI overtook Shepard's form, concentrating about her face and eyes, and Shepard watched with trepidation from her pounding head as the floor beneath her feet swept forth with orange light, boxing and framing everything like a grid. Her team members almost _glitched_ , seeming like odd moving photos instead of themselves.

This...this was what the VI saw.

A will not her own moved Shepard's feet one at a time, and her own will was all that kept the pace forcefully slowed, her mind battling the crawling sensation in her brain as it kept fighting to win control.

Arms reached for her, and the green glow grew worse, the pounding in her head and the burning down her nerves amplified to the point she groaned. It was the only warning she could give. Another step and Shepard was through the door upon her knees, feeling like a swarm of Collector bugs were gathering in her skull.

A loud, high pitched ping of noise screeched across her awareness, and then she saw almost holographic afterthoughts of Archer and someone else, possibly David, moving down the vivid green gridded hall and disappearing through the door close by.

She barely heard the door behind her hiss shut on its own. But she did make out the pounding on the other side and the muted, digitized threats and roars against the VI from her turian man.

The VI forced her to her feet and forward again, through the door they'd been denied before. Shepard let it move her a step out of curiosity, and she found that when she didn't actively fight it, she could move freely forward—and do so without half of the pain going through her body.

 _That settles it, then,_ she thought, and with an inward whisper of love and luck to Garrus and her team, began walking onward. She ran through the open door with clenched teeth and a raised pistol, her omni-tool so bright orange it was almost burning to look at.

It made sense, of course, if she thought about it. The VI had likely hacked through her omni-tool implant chip and, through that, into her damn cybernetics, the bastard.

Shepard paused when she could see a circular room through a window in front of her, and the giant VI's face through it. She had a goal, a visual goal now, but she wasn't alone as she heard and saw the hot bullets, ones just like the shot that had burned her cheek, zipping down at her from the right. A controlled trooper fired again as she realized she couldn't cloak. Her tech was disabled.

Fuming, Shepard rolled back into the hall she'd come through and timed her shots around the corner, taking even greater care than usual to be sure each round she fired hit exactly where it needed to go without waste. Her disrupter ammunition was still effective, thank fuck, and she was relieved to see the trooper go down in two head shots.

She made her way past its fallen platform with less enthusiasm and more dread, her eyes keenly aware of the VI's face in the central room following her across the fucking windows the farther she went, passing what were obviously bodies of Cerberus employees outlined creepily on the floor. At the end of the half-circular walkway was a room, and it opened for her.

Shepard entered it, guts still a mess as she saw the holographic forms again. And this time she knew it really was a version of David—she could see the similarity to the one photograph Archer had kept with him at Hermes Station, and Shepard's heart clenched as David's holo-form rocked on the floor at the feet of his demanding brother.

“...square root of 906.1 is 30.1. Square root of 912.04....”

“Time is running out. We've no options left,” Archer's digital self spoke, ignoring David's computations. “How to speak with the geth?”

A holo-geth platform, like Archer and David, was upon the machine behind them, and it spoke in those strange geth sounds. But what shocked Shepard more was hearing David do it, too, somehow in this odd reality.

Shepard's mouth fell open as much as Archer's did when David happily said that the robot was telling them hello.

Legion's little brows popped into her thoughts, and she swallowed as she _witnessed_ Archer put his experiment right back together and begin the start of everything wrong.  
  
The room went orange again, the VI's grumble startled her, and Shepard saw a glowing ball of green digital light near another machine in the room. She went near it, and another memory-type event activated of David and Archer, and David again was repeating the square roots, as if centering himself. Archer asked for a recollection of his notes, and David appeared to be overwhelmed a bit and raising his voice to show it was getting _too loud_ somehow, overstimulated to the point that Archer himself apologized and asked in a quieter, softer way before getting what he wanted.

The brief exchange wasn't enough to soften the stone in Shepard's chest against Archer himself, but it _did_ give her some very important insight into David's method of thinking—that even as he considered wanting earplugs, he was still reciting off square roots of high, complicated numbers. In a way it almost was constantly speaking bilingually.

Shepard didn't want to go to the additional ball of light when the room changed again, but she did. This time Archer had an assistant with him, a geth hanging from a machine, and David standing ready. David was asked to make the geth move. He spoke in that strange geth way, and the platform's legs briefly walked in the air.

“How does he do it?” the other employee wondered.

“David's mind is able to interpret the geth's language in its most basic form—math—and then mimic any phonetics they create,” Archer explained in the vision. “With his photographic memory, he can cross-reference meanings he's learned. Not only is he a mathematical savant, but he's practically a human computer.” 

 _You sonofabitch_ , Shepard retorted in her head, easily able to see Archer's past excitement overriding everything in the moment. The employee wanted to know if David could possibly interface with the geth's neural network, and Archer, brother or not, saw _no harm_ in finding out.

Shepard went past the forms before they flickered out and the room became orange again, too fucking angry and aware of the geth platforms attached to hubs in the adjoining room. Where they were harmless, in a sense, like in the room she'd entered after the elevator's fiasco, here she could _tell_ they were dangerous. Much more like the geth station Legion had taken her to before the Omega-4.

She shot through a window and blasted apart the geth hub, destroying one platform in the process. Her finger pulled the trigger, and the remaining geth went down one after another, disappearing into green digital light as they broke apart.

Without even looking through the rest of the fucking room, she followed the ramp down into another part of the circular hallway about the huge central room, and this time when Shepard got near the window, she could hear David's voice _much more clearly_ through the VI pleading, “Make it _stop_!”

Heart broken, furious, raging, Shepard picked up speed. She saw a ball of light before her starting to travel down some sort of digital piping, and she popped it out of existence with her pistol before entering a room at the other end. The station computer somehow managed to get through and warn about the elevator being over maximum weight capacity just as the damn thing came up with geth ready to shoot her.

Shepard swapped out for her Collector plasma gun she'd grown to taking with her much of the time since its saving grace at the base, and she made quick work of the three geth after her pistol's disruptor ammunition tore their shields apart. She went over to the elevator and rode it down by herself, squaring her shoulders for what could possibly be coming below that large floating green face.

She exited out into the large circular room with an inner structure resting on several column supports, and another holo-memory event appeared at the base of something odd, something circular behind lots of gridded out shield-like boxes to her digital eye.

“We're ready,” Archer's form said as it began to disappear. “Open the connection to the geth network now.”

The geth noise sounded off, and Shepard breathed out as the big green face showed above the circular object, yelling for quiet. Geth reappeared with Archer's form, and Shepard saw the instant it had all begun to blend—where David had _dangerous_ control over the geth through the bridge his VI connection and where, overloaded by the network's flow of continual information from the geth, David's mind demanded peace. The geth platforms in the memory turned on a panicked Archer, and David made one last final plea to his brother that was never fulfilled.

The memory vanished away, the boxes about the circular object slid about, and Shepard saw tubes like the one she'd caught the green ball circumventing prior appear connecting the center object with the silhouette inside of it to the columns.

“Node found. Attempting to establish upload link with _Normandy SR2_.”

 _Fuck!_ Shepard screamed in her head, hoping and praying the crew on the ship were as prepared as she'd tried to make them be.

A green data ball started making its way along the digital tube nearest her, and she broke it with two shots, eyes already scanning for more. That was when the shielding around the inner object split, and on instinct Shepard whipped the plasma gun out again, holding the beam as long as she could until the shielding closed over.

Uncomfortably close to the husk-filled nightmare of the derelict Reaper, she thought.

Archer's recorded voice spread warnings to the other stations to override, loud and bouncing around the room. Shepard ignored it as much as possible, waiting for the next data ball to show, and she managed to shoot one, only to see another had traveled along a tube on the other side of the room. The ball hit the floor, turned into a geth platform, and she shot it down before taking the plasma gun back out for another run at the exposed central object. After another round, during which she didn't let _a single_ data ball touch _anything_ as she ran about in circles looking and shooting the damn things as they appeared, Shepard spent nearly all her plasma beam charge trying to burst that object controlling it all.

“ _Please_ MAKE IT STOP!” David's voice cried out.

 _Please_ , she begged. _Please let me help_.

Just as her gun began to lock up, the object shattered.

And with it so too did her digital view of the world.

Shepard's huge eyes took in the monstrosity that had been hidden, the set-up to create a method of control for David and the geth, and a cry caught in her throat, silenced, but _searing_ her insides.

David was _literally_ wired into a build for the geth neural network computers, his body suspended within a crazed device holding him in place. Tubes hooked into spots along his arms, a metal bracket was wrapped about his chest, more tubes were coming out of his mouth running into other machines, and crowning him was a disturbing haloed stabilizer hooked into his head and even his eyes, forcing them open.

Shepard almost fell to her knees.

The horror. The absolute horror.

She'd thought the geth were monsters for impaling people on Eden Prime.

She'd thought the Collectors monsters for abducting and dissolving people.

But this....

Tears burned her eyes, but didn't fall, as she knew, as she saw the truth before her: That perhaps the worst monster of all was the darkness within her own species. That greed, desire to control, and money recklessly pushed to make this happen to an innocent person. That not only was _Archer_ single-handedly responsible for making this fucking machine to _put_ his brother into it, but that the Illusive Man obviously funded and approved every step of its construction and functionality.

“David,” she whispered, coming closer.

Up high above her, David hung in the machine, but his dark eyes were swiveling down her way. His mouth couldn't move with all the tubes, but his voice was heard through all the station as he softly, humanly, requested, “Please...quiet...make it stop.”

Shepard strode up the platform leading to him carefully, trying to indicate she wouldn't harm him with her open hands and gentle expression of sadness. “I will, David. I'm getting you out of there. Just hold on. Just hold on, buddy.”

David's dark eyes stared at her, unable to blink. But somehow she could sense the relief in them.

“Commander!” Archer called. “Wait!”

Shepard's fist clenched. Slowly, very slowly, she turned around to face the doctor running into the room. She didn't say a fucking word. Her expression spoke for her.

Archer began to panic, hands up as he tried to keep coming forward. “Please, Commander, don't do anything rash here.”

Green eyes enflamed. The scowl dug down into her cheeks, morphing into something so dark it almost scared her to feel it come over her face. “Was this not _rash_ , Archer? Was _forcing your own brother_ into this torture device not _rash_!”

Archer dropped his face into his palms. “I know. I know how it looks. You must believe me when I say I didn't intend harm to come to David. There was a deadline, and he was helpful, and one advancement led to another to the point that.... I didn't plan this, Commander. It was accidental, really, it was. Seeing him communicate with geth—I was excited. It seemed harmless to be thrilled at the time.”

“This _device_ did not build itself. David did _not_ hook himself into it. That's a plan, Archer,” Shepard shouted, her voice booming with fiery power. When Archer tried to step closer to look at David she intervened and kept him back with her aura alone. “Not one more step. Accident, my ass. Even _if_ your 'excited brain' ran with your idea to the point of this private hell, you _let it happen_. You _enabled it_.”

“There was no choice! The Illusive Man had his demands, incredible demands, that _could not_ be failed!”

“You told the Illusive Man what David could do out of your own desperation, and I know _well_ how he sees means to ends. This is no accident, Archer. You _had_ a choice as David's family. Don't even try that with me.”

Archer shook his head frustratedly. “Commander, any wars with geth will bring blood. Fights with them already have. My task was to find prevention or, at the least, control to a better situation.”

“Intention is _not_ a fucking excuse to throw at me,” Shepard yelled. “How many already died for this, Archer? How much blood is _on your hands_? How much _time_ has David spent in this already?”

“More souls...and more time...than can be forgiven,” Archer answered forlornly. “But it doesn't mean the ideal was wrong—that radical ideals are inherently wrong. Imagine if my work spares a million mothers the deaths of their children in battle, Commander.”

“You're arguing that when your brother is _still up there_! It's not about David at all. It never _was_. It's about you—you and your fucking ego,” Shepard snapped, almost growling out her next words like a damn turian. “ _No. More._ ”

Archer's eyes widened. “Commander!”

“You are going to unhook him from this _right now_. You're gonna watch me walk out of here with your brother. And you are gonna stay and wait for a Cerberus ride all alone.”

“Shepard, don't be—”  
  
Shepard angled downward, almost nose-to-nose with the doctor with David still suspended like a broken, captive god. “You fucking _listen_ to me. Your brother _is not_ a tool for you to use. I don't care _how_ well you appear to think Cerberus will care for their lab rats. I _know_ they will not because _this_ is what is passable, acceptable, and already approved. Your brother has already been sacrificed for your ambition, Archer.”

Archer bit back his immediate response, quiet as Shepard grew as they both heard David's voice speak above them through the machines. “The square root of 906.1 equals....”

Shepard closed her eyes. Archer sighed roughly. “30.1.”

“Get him out of there. _Now_.”

“I will, but Commander—”

Shepard glared. “Do _not_ say another fucking word to me.”

Archer frowned, nodding, but spoke anyway. “Commander, what I've done...it's unforgivable. But let me atone. Let me take care of David. Don't take him.”

“You gave up that right when you put him in there, Archer. He's coming with me.”

“No! He's too valuable, Commander!” Archer countered and grabbed for a pistol at his side.

Her hand moved before she'd even known her brain had made the decision. The side of her pistol slapped hard across Archer's head, knocking the doctor backward. She kicked the one he'd dropped far away. He held the side of his face, groaning, as Shepard stood with it aimed above him. “If you ever come _near_ him again, this bullet will end you. You called him _valuable_ , and that is proof enough of your greed. Get him down.”

“I won't get him down for you to take,” Archer argued against her.

Footsteps loudly thundered out of the area Archer had entered, and Shepard glanced once to see her team running their direction.

Shepard pointed. “You see that bald angry-looking woman?”

Archer turned and almost recoiled at the expression of pure _hatred_ in Jack's dark eyes as Jack, Miranda, and Garrus all came to a halt to stare up at David.

“Now, Doctor, the next time you want to think about protesting over unhooking David for us to take him safely, Jack here might just break something on your body. And I may or may not stop her. Test my patience, if you dare.”

Jack's biotics clouded about them so brightly that Archer's face was washed in blue.

Archer slowly got up, hands in the surrender position.

Shepard pointed David's way. “Get. Him. Down. _Now._ ”

“Yes, Commander,” Archer submitted, voice broken as he started to pace around the machine.

“Miranda, Jack, you watch him.”

“Yes, Shepard,” Miranda replied, passing Shepard with a touch of concern to her shoulder as she moved to catch up with Jack already breathing down Archer's terrified neck.

Shepard turned about and looked up at David still caught in that horror, and she finally felt a tear roll down the side of her cheek. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. We're getting you out of here, David. We'll get you somewhere safe.”

“Better not be another fucking Pragia, Shepard, or _your_ head is next!”

“We'll meet with an Alliance ship, Jack, and get him a ride to Grissom Academy,” Shepard said, silencing her angry team mate whose shotgun was rested _squarely_ against the back of Archer's skull as he worked. “It's a school for gifted kids. He'll get help, security, and have the opportunity to learn in a safe environment. I wouldn't let him go anywhere else for less than that.”

Garrus put a heavy, comforting hand on Shepard's right shoulder. His ribbed nose nuzzled at her ear and hair. “I'm sorry, A. We were locked in that room until you did...whatever you did. Then we had to find our way here. I...I'm here when you need me, and if there's _anything_ I can do for the kid when we get him on the ship, just say it.”

“Thank you, Garrus,” Shepard whispered, eyes not leaving David's as the machine began to lower. “Thank you.”

 

  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [It's 5 am. It's taken me all Christmas to finish this because the mental space for it is not, at all, jolly.  
> This is fucking intense.  
> And now, now I need to go chill out before I can even sleep.  
> Enjoy, folks. And Happy Holidays.
> 
> Next update will feature a bit of David on the ship in _much_ better circumstances.]


	11. Exhale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.
> 
> [Apologies for the update delays.]

   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Shepard.”

“....”

“Shepard, I want to thank you for stopping the VI from spreading through the satellites. A job well done, as expected.”

“....”

“I've transferred payments to you and your entire crew.”  
  
“....”  
  
“A shuttle is en route to retrieve Dr. Archer and can meet the _Normandy_ for David Archer's retrieval for convenience.”

“No.”

“...no?”

“No.”

“I know he's been taken aboard for medical care, and I'm grateful, but—”

“No.”

“Dr. Archer...mentioned...you seemed insistent on sending David to the Alliance's Grissom Academy. Admirable, of course, and I'm sympathetic, but I'll ask you to reconsider once. Think of how much we've been able to realize we can do because of him. Think of how inspirational he has been to us. Think of how far we can keep going. If you're concerned about ethics and treatments of David himself, I promise you personally only the best care will be provided to him with a different team. His brother won't be in charge of his health as, clearly, David's condition deteriorated so dangerously for both himself and the project.”  
  
“ _No_ ,” Shepard said again, voice dark and deep.

Her green eyes didn't blink.

The scowl on her angry lips didn't fall.

The fury could not be compromised with silver tongued words from a holographic man.

The Illusive Man bowed his head in his chair, cigarette smoke lifting and trailing enough to be picked up in the image. A thumb rubbed across his brow beneath his grayed hair, and he sighed. “Shepard, I'm aware of the circumstances. I understand Archer grew carried away with the mission and that in his he eagerness put David's life in danger. And sometimes that happens when research is so important, when the _human race_ and its future is.”

“I don't know all the pies your fingers are in, but Pragia should have been enough of a wake up call. Apparently it wasn't,” Shepard began, arms crossed defensively. “David was in a practical torture device. And I'm getting him help because he needs to _recover_ from that nightmare, not be thrown back into it. Not on my watch. Not on my conscience. I've already contacted an Alliance escort, and the school is going to be expecting him.”

The haunting, inhuman blue eyes stared back at her fiercely. And then they softened. Almost too quickly. “Always championing for people, Shepard. Again, our motives are not so different.”

Shepard rolled her eyes, unimpressed. “You're not going to manipulate me on this one. I went on the mission, I accomplished the goal. That was the deal. I want my ship—in writing.”

Holographic smoke blew as he considered her in his immaculate suit. “Hm.”

“David was an unknown to me, not part of the deal, and he's not a bargaining chip regardless. You're all about means and ends? Well I solved your damn problem, as you said.”

“I can respect that, Shepard, even if you think I don't.”

Shepard sighed, shaking her head. “Look, I know you have all the research that's done. You'll restart it whenever or however you're going to do so, possibly with another victim and another idiot like Archer sacrificing his family. I can't help whoever's next in your goals, but I can help David. And myself. We're done.”

“And what about Dr. T'soni?”

“What?” Shepard snapped, green eyes aflame. “If that is a _threat_ , you can—”

The Illusive Man slowly shook his head back and forth, the speed indicating openness and less aggression than the look in his damn eyes did afterward. “Shepard, you're getting quicker and quicker to jump at things than you used to do. Perhaps you should have retained Chambers for further services.”

“You die and resurrect and see if your fuse is any shorter.”

“Fair.” He put out his cigarette finally and stared at her. “You're _sure_ you're done? How do you plan on fueling this ship without the aid of Cerberus? Running back to Alliance?”

“Maybe I'll go on fucking vacation first and then prepare to kick Reaper ass my way.”

He smirked, ghostly with the twitch of the connection. “Well. If you're sure...I guess I could leave you with some information, something my sources came across. Think of it as a parting gift.”

Shepard locked her jaw. The man had paid to retrieve her corpse, resuscitate her, and pay her way through the galaxy to the point of her bomb on the Collector base, and he wanted to _gift_ her information? Nothing was for free with the Illusive Man. And Shepard had learned that the hard way—that someday, even years from now, he'd get back at her somehow for not saving the base. For taking David away.

“The Shadow Broker had been working to aid the Collectors—and in turn, aid the Reapers. Since Dr. T'soni had her run-in with agents, it's clear she's been...searching...with her position on Illium. We reached out to give her a lead on the Broker's location via some purchases, but she didn't trust us,” he drawled, resting back calmly, perfectly playing the frustrated charitable samaritan. His eerie eyes stared her down. “So maybe she'll listen to you. And maybe you can find your next fuel stop paid by the good doctor in her gratefulness at our lead.”

Shepard's teeth ground tightly.

She didn't trust him. Even if the information was _good_ and actually helpful to Liara, she didn't trust _him_ ; she didn't trust him not to already be five steps ahead like it was a game, and she didn't trust him not to be trying to get the ship back and Shepard _under_ his thumb for good.

But Liara's friend was still in trouble. Liara was, even now, looking for him desperately.

The pair of them had saved _her_ , enabled her to be brought back to life and be with her mother again, with _Garrus_ again. And even if Cerberus tech was part of that process, Shepard credited Miranda Lawson with her life and no one else at this point bearing a Cerberus logo.

“Forward the information,” Shepard said warily. “I'll be sure she gets it.”

“Tell her to be careful with her movements. If she's so easy for _us_ to track, she's already on the Broker's radar.”

“...thanks.”

“You're welcome,” he replied, clearly gratified at getting her to say the word.

“And this is it,” she retorted to that gratification. “I'm gonna assume for now that I'm not going to have assassins on my ass in an hour.”

The Illusive Man shrugged. “I'm not all bad, Shepard. I want what's best for humanity.”

He needed her. Still. But for what?

“There's a benefit, isn't there,” she said. “A benefit to watching me help her do this.”

His eyes narrowed at her skepticism, and then, with a slow exhale, he smiled.

A chill went through Shepard's spine.

“Goodbye, Commander Shepard,” the Illusive Man softly spoke. "I'll forward Lawson documents on the ship."  
  
And with that he severed the connection entirely.

 

\-----------------------------

 

Garrus sat in the medbay in a chair next to David Archer's medical bed.

He sat there because he'd been the one to carry David's limp, exhausted form onto the ship, and for some reason the human asked him to stay when Dr. Chakwas began to catalogue his wounds and start work on healing David.

The rest of the crew had stayed back out of respect. David had been made aware of Legion on the ship before they'd boarded because Shepard didn't want him to panic, and Legion had relocated itself, thankfully, into the observation deck for now. And Tali had only entered once to bring Garrus dinner and quietly introduce herself with a wave to David at the end of his exam.

Thus over an hour later, Garrus was still sitting alone with David as their favorite human doctor decided the right and safe medications to give him. Garrus even helped her with bandaging David's wounds once his hands were clean and David was aware enough to weakly lift an arm for Garrus to hold up.

The kid was so strange to him with his almost aloof politeness. Strange in a good way.

There were turians like David, to a degree, turians that struggled with the collective instincts and urges and turians with gifts and more delicate senses and needs, but Garrus hadn't been around many of them growing up, mostly because of the moving they'd done as a family and then the long Citadel stay with his dad in C-Sec. But even so...this human felt unique to Garrus. His personality, his quiet observance, his softness in how he spoke.

Currently David was very quiet in his exhaustion, and yet still awake enough to answer each question Dr. Chakwas asked with a soft, level voice. Nothing too emotional yet, nothing beyond factual responses to pain locations, adrenaline sensitivity and such. He seemed tense, of course, but Garrus had thought about something when he'd carried David out of Atlas Station at Shepard's soft request: The panic and overwhelming physical response David had undergone as they'd gotten him out of the machine had slowly waned away, replaced by partial unconsciousness as the human had fought to be aware for boarding. And during that lull...Garrus thought that maybe David had calmed down because Shepard had been right there, holding his hand the entire time he'd been carried.

That though David had witnessed Shepard threaten Archer one last time when he'd tried to follow after them, David didn't feel anger at her. He felt _safe_ , even if he didn't say so.

Because from there on he'd noted David watching Shepard and Garrus in the shuttle between his glances to a silently thoughtful Miranda and an impatient Jack ready to be the hell off planet. Even when he'd been brought into the medbay, David took longer to respond to Dr. Chakwas; it wasn't due to exhaustion and pain but instead the evident focus he'd kept on Shepard touching Garrus's face and Garrus hugging her quickly before she'd left to deal with the Illusive Man.  
  
“Can you sleep, David? Your body hasn't slept in a few days. Your mind needs it, too,” Dr. Chakwas murmured softly. “I can give you medication, but not much—some things can interact with chemicals already in your blood stream, I'm afraid. Might be a few days before more sleep aids are safe to ingest in more effective degree.”

David swung his head, his dark eyes resting on the good doctor. “What if...I can't?”

“You'd had _forced_ insomnia prior, David. Not natural, judging by your blood tests. You should be able to sleep with some relaxation and a nudge from the pain medications I can use.”

“Maybe he means he's in even more unfamiliar territory and worried, Doc,” Garrus suggested calmly. He crossed his ankles languidly and patted the bit of bed near David's leg. “Don't worry. You're safe, kid. Probably the safest place you could be right now.”

David stared at him, especially his bandage.

Chakwas didn't speak, but she looked at Garrus with some concern. Absolutely exhausted, Garrus shoved the tiredness and aches back for a little while longer and said, “See my bandage, huh. Wanna know what happened?”

David nodded slowly.

Garrus glanced to the doctor. “Got my cream in here?”

“Sure, Garrus,” Chakwas replied and excused herself a moment to retrieve it.

While she did so, Garrus removed his bandage and exposed his cheek to the air, feeling it cool over the still healing plating. His mandible flexed more as he naturally fluttered it, almost in a tiny instinctual turian stretch. Not unlike Shepard's yawn, Garrus thought, amused.

Garrus carefully pointed around his old wound. “See this scarring? A rocket blast hit near me in close quarters a while ago. The close impact of it and the shrapnel caused all this. I, uh...almost didn't make it, but Doc— _this_ Doc, Dr. Chakwas—saved me. She and a salarian doctor we had at the time worked hard.”

David's big dark eyes, still reddened slightly from the machine's clamps, took in his scarring and face before turning to Chakwas, watching the older human woman step back over and hand Garrus the cream. He rose only to wash his hands briefly again, and then he carefully applied it with David watching the process methodically in his curiosity.

When David asked for some water, Chakwas moved to retrieve it, and Garrus leaned closer to the bed's side, whispering, “You can trust her. She's really nice for a human, I promise.”

David's face didn't change much, but his eyes lit up somehow. Like a smile, but not, as it faded gently away for him to view the large window across the room that had been darkened to give them privacy from the mess hall.

“You can trust Shepard, too. And whoever it is she's working with to get you to this Grissom Academy place. Okay?”

“Shepard,” David murmured, nodding to himself, thinking thoughts Garrus could only guess. “Where...is she?”

“She went to go yell at someone for hurting you.”

David's brow arched up. And then he looked uncomfortable.

Garrus sighed, unsure of what to say. “Not, ah...your...brother. His boss.” When David didn't speak again, Garrus sat against the edge of the bed slightly with his hip. “David, what happened in there...you didn't do anything wrong, okay? That wasn't your fault. People took advantage of you, and Shepard's not gonna let them do that anymore.”

David's eyes fell, and he leaned back against the pillow silently.

Garrus felt the tremble through the bed, and he carefully, gently, patted David's hand with his. “I'll admit...even with other turians, I'm not always the best at knowing _what_ to say, but...I'll listen if you wanna talk. And Shepard will listen, too. And EDI will, if you feel like talking to her if you can't sleep tonight.”

“EDI?” David asked, curiosity back.

“Hello, David,” EDI spoke over the comms. Her bright blue holo-form appeared on its pedestal in the room, and David stared at it for a moment. Each quiet, hard edged second made Garrus want to twitch with worry. EDI tried again. “I'm an AI, David, and I'm self-actualized. Do you know what that means?”

David tilted his face. “Different...than geth. Independent. Capable. You have a personality.”

“Yes, I do,” EDI answered politely. “And you can speak to me just like you are now. But if you don't want to speak with me, I will leave you be. Just know you have nothing to fear.”

“What are you?”

“I'm a defense oriented AI installed into this ship. There are large servers and processors in the next room, the AI core, that allow me to function. I use cameras to see and microphones to hear and speak.”

“You are the _Normandy_.”

“In...a way, yes. I was added _to_ it, so it’s like my body. The ship functioned without me, but now I am integrated with all my systems for aid.”

David grew quiet again, but this time in a pondering way.  
  
The hiss of the doors caught their attention, and Garrus sighed in slight relief when Shepard entered behind Dr. Chakwas with a cold glass of water. EDI's holo went away to give them privacy while his tired girlfriend strode over to the bed and put the glass on a mobile tray she arranged closer to David. Her green eyes didn't stray from his gaze.

“Hey, there,” Shepard said, softer than Garrus had heard her speak before to just about anyone. “Heard you're afraid you might not be able to get some sleep.”

David shifted upright more against the large pillow, hunching slightly and rocking the tiniest bit in place.

Shepard frowned a little, and she took one of David's hands slowly, allowing the other human time to ask her to stop. Garrus saw David's fingers wrap around hers cautiously, but strongly, just as they had before when leaving Atlas Station.

“Listen, David...bad dreams about...about what happened...well, there's always a chance you'll have bad dreams, I can't lie to you,” Shepard began with an easy, reassuring squeeze of her fingers. “But you know what? Sometimes I get so damn tired from what I do that by the time I'm ready to go to bed, even if I'm scared about bad dreams, I just conk out. I don't even remember if I've dreamed or not.”

“Nope,” Garrus agreed from the other side of the bed. “She snores instead.”

“Garrus,” Shepard snickered at him.

David's rocking slowed as his attention focused outward upon them.

Garrus shrugged. “Drools, too. Out the corner of her mouth, all over the pillow.”

“I do _not_.”

“She's just embarrassed, David. Doesn't want to admit she's drooled on my arm before. Takes away from that Commander image, doesn't it. But that's okay. Even Commanders can drool in their sleep when they snore.”

Shepard rolled her eyes at him playfully. “Fine.”

“Hey now. I didn't say it was _all the time_.”

Shepard laughed a bit, not her full chuckle, but her tired-as-fuck-but-amused-anyway one. And David watched the pair of them smile at one another, watched them stare lovingly, and he relaxed back into his pillow again, his fingers squeezing Shepard's.

“Anyway, David, if you do sleep and wake up because of such a dream? Doc's here. EDI's just a word away. I'm right upstairs. Garrus will be, too. And you can talk to any of us or all of us, if you want.” Shepard looked over the young man sadly. “I bet life's been odd at times for you with travel and...what your brother's work got him into. I hope that this school will give you a center, David. It's a great place to learn and learn _safely_.”

“Grissom Academy is a school for biotically gifted individuals, Commander Shepard. I am not biotically gifted.”

“It's also available for anyone needing some space to learn, grow, and use their skills—biotic, tech, or otherwise. You'll belong, David. I promise. There'll be lots of people your age that are probably very similar to you.”

David contemplated her words shyly. “Perhaps, yes.”

Shepard nodded and squeezed his hand one last time. “All I ask is that you give it a chance, okay? A real one. And if you don't like it, let me know.”

“Will I hear from....” The words fell away, and David's expression tightened.

“No,” Shepard firmly said. “Not...for now. Do you...understand, David? Sometimes even though our family loves us, they can...do things that aren't so good for us.”

“I bet you'll make some friends at the school, too,” Garrus murmured, trying to pull David's focus outward as the younger human male withdrew again. “I'm not bad with math, but _you're_ way better. Maybe some kids there are, too.”

“How...long?” David asked. “How long until I am there?”

“Couple days to meet the ship that'll get you there. Maybe a week max for you to arrive safely at Grissom.” Shepard quickly caught the nervousness that even Garrus could see, and she smiled. “I know this is all weird. I know it feels a bit scary, and there's a lot of transitioning you have to do, but I believe with all of us helping and your willingness, we can get you to a better center. And you can learn and go forward in life how _you_ want.”

“Thank you, Commander Shepard,” David replied, eyes starting to close more.

“And David... _my mom_ is on this ship taking you there. She's gonna make sure you get there, and that you're safe,” Shepard whispered closely. “Her name is Hannah, and she's gonna like you very much. She'll make sure you're all settled in with the school before she leaves, too, okay? Each step will be a bridge, not a drop off into the unknown.”

David smiled somewhat to himself and nodded.

Garrus waved a little as Shepard stood back up. Both said their goodnights, getting a very tired one from David in turn, and when they exited the room, Garrus immediately put an arm about her shoulders and pulled her closer, kissing her brow. “Your mom is gonna be a great help, babe.”

“I know, Garrus. I was so fucking relieved she answered my call when she did.”

“What about the Illusive Man?”

She sighed and tugged him into the elevator, not speaking until the lift settled on her floor. “Well, Garrus, he's supposedly letting me off the hook now, but he baited me with some info on the Broker Liara could use. So we might have _that_ to deal with, which means I may need to ask _again_ if any of this crew is willing to stay with me somehow and if so, I've got to find money for that.”

“Hey, we still have some savings from your past balance between the money for mom and whatnot, whatever was left after ship repairs. I'll give you all I've got, too. We'll find a way, A., if we've gotta.” Garrus followed her out of the elevator and into the cabin. “Not sure I trust this tip of his, but if it clears with Liara and she needs us, we'll be there.”

“Damn right. I just _hate_ the idea of still being in debt to him somehow.”

“Have you eaten or showered yet?”

“No. I'm ready to pass out, almost. I still need to debrief my meeting with Miranda.”

“It's been a long day, A. Lawson can wait a little longer for you to eat, shower, mumble a few words to her, and sleep.”

“Fine.”

“And babe, I just want to say...well, I'm proud of you. Dealing with all that happened _today_ was...insane, but getting all this sorted for David, too, just so he'd have some sense of safety? I know he doesn't know us well, but I think he trusts us. He trusts _you_ at least. I feel it. And I'm proud of you for getting that trust from him, because I sure as fuck wouldn't trust shit if I were in his position. Not ever again.”

“I know.”

“He's so strong, Shepard. Spirits, I can't...fucking imagine. I might be the one with bad dreams after all this.”

“You and me both. And if I drool tonight, don't you say a fucking word about it.”

Garrus chuckled. “Okay, babe. Get a hot shower and relax a moment.”

Shepard yawned and stepped down to her dresser for clean clothes. Garrus stared over her, his blue eyes pained, his vocals trying to soothe both of them in growing concern when she stepped back up toward him; her skin was paler than usual, her freckled dots standing out with more contrast. Dried blood was still present near her ear and temple alongside a shorter few strands of red hair.

Garrus cupped the side of her face when she paused. Instincts pushed him that he'd never quite known before, instincts still so new and growing familiar over the past few weeks, and Garrus hummed a soft, rumbling sound before he began to nuzzle against her jawline and then brush his unwounded mandible into her cheek. Shepard's eyes slowly drifted shut with each repetition until he pressed his brow to hers and rubbed there, too, still making the soft sound as his arms held her tight, armor and all.

Long haul, they'd both agreed.

And thank the Spirits for that.

Because Garrus, as he felt her tender kiss to his mouth, knew the bonding hormones had almost doubled since their successful return from the Omega-4. He'd not said anything about it, just noticed the strength of need in his emotions and actions, the increase in their mutual scent with their shared sleeping now a nightly thing. As he let her go and she stepped into the bathroom alone, he wondered what to do with all of this _energy_ in him that still wanted to pick her up and vanish to some remote wishful, safe place where Reapers didn't exist and the Alliance, Cerberus, and the rest of the damn galaxy could squabble without them.

He hoped that whatever was possibly coming their way with Liara would pass quickly because they were burning out—not just on fuel or cash, but on energy. Spirit. Gusto. Whatever it was that had kept them pushing through hell to get to the other side. They needed to recharge to face anything else Reaper related. And Garrus needed to be able to use that protective energy in a productive way, or his instincts were going to drive him crazy soon.

Garrus listened to the water running in soft rushes hidden by the shut door behind him. He listened to his girlfriend's tender sighs of relief that calmed him as if they were her own subharmonic vocals designed to do just that. He wanted to hear more of it. He wanted her to _relax_.

And as the thought hit him, he brought his omni-tool up to message his mom, curious if that vacation they'd wondered about before could really be arranged.  


 


	12. New Stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic Series from 2014-15, additional writing for gaps like Vol 2.5 (originally unplanned) from 2016-18.  
> Mass Effect owned by Bioware, EA.  
> Thanks for letting us play our own stories in your world.
> 
> [Apologies for the wait. The last months have been a rough trial with life. Here's hoping to be back to updating regularly soon.]

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
After a full morning of discussions with Miranda, Dr. Chakwas, and EDI about the Illusive Man's tip for Liara, Shepard came to the decision that _at the least_ something needed to be said to her friend, even if she didn't trust her ex-boss in the slightest. She knew if Liara went after the trail that Shepard herself would soon be following, too damn concerned about her once archaeologist pal now turned determined broker.  
  
She owed her too much not to follow.  
  
Liara was literally the reason Shepard was still _alive_ , and she owed _Liara's_ friend just as much, a drell who had helped the asari recover her body. Shepard remembered Liara mentioning that the drell had gone missing in the danger of it all, and if this tip from Cerberus helped Liara find him, then Shepard was honor, duty, and empathetically bound to be part of it, too.

  
Regardless of how it might go down, this meant a trip to Illium to ensure absolute security in the transfer of information, and that meant fuel cost and priority changes for anyone staying or leaving.  
  
With a day left before her mother's ship would arrive at their coordinates to pick up a recovering David, Shepard knew she'd have to talk with the crew about this possibility of a mission and see who, if anyone, would even remain to pilot the ship or fight with her if need be. Garrus was a given as was Joker and Miranda. Tali might stick around a bit longer with Liara being involved, but Shepard knew her quarian friend could feel the pressure from the Fleet to return to deal with the Haestrom business. But as for the rest...she didn't know. Shepard needed some crew hands, at the least, to stick it out. Or so she figured.  
  
It was during this mulling consideration in her head that Shepard heard EDI's voice and, with absolute relief at the minor distraction, asked, “What was that, EDI?”

“Urdnot Wrex is requesting communication. You can bring the call up on your office screen, Commander,” EDI repeated politely, glowing blue at her station by the door.

Shepard's red brows jumped up. She grinned. “Thanks, girl.”

Quickly she messed with her omni-tool settings and sat back in her chair, watching as the big familiar red crest of the krogan began to fill the glass in front of her. Shepard couldn't drop her smile, just damn happy to be alive and looking at that old scarred up face as Wrex smirked at her from his throne on Tuchanka.

“Shepard,” he grunted with a nod.  
  
“Wrex,” she snickered. “Long distance call. What's up?”

The old krogan rolled his neck a bit, a habit of his she'd long associated with him. “I heard you survived that Omega-4 Relay crap. Good. Time to live up to _your_ end of the deal.”

“My end of what deal?” she asked, confused at first.

“C'mon, Shepard. We tested that runt of yours, he passed, and he got clan name,” Wrex muttered tiredly. “You had him fight for ya. Now it's time for him to continue proving himself Urdnot.”

Oh. Yeah.

Shepard nodded and rubbed her eyes. Honestly, in the middle of _everything_ constantly going on, she'd sort of forgotten about Grunt being part of Clan Urdnot. And she felt bad for it. She sat forward in her chair apologetically, fingers bridging together with elbow support. “Sorry, Wrex. He went along on another brief mission the past few days with me once our ship was repaired. But you're right. I'll talk with him.”

“ _I've_ talked with him. Boy's ready.”

“Why didn't he say something, then?”

Wrex smirked a little. “Seemed to think you're still too weak without him yet. 'Course I _know_ that's a load of shit, but he's not wrong about one thing—you humans are squishy.”

Shepard chuckled. “And Garrus was worried about _me_ being attached. Looks like I'm not the only one, huh.”

“Shut up, Shepard. I heard you that day with Uvenk. You said he's your _tank baby_. I mean, I get it. Just _sounds_ gross. Must have made some impression, though.”

“Oh, so what?” she winked. “Wrex, I'll be real with you. I wanna get him to you as soon as possible, but I'm not sure I can afford a trip to Tuchanka. I have to head near Illium, though, and I've got the fuel for that...just that. Want me to set him up with a ride from there?”

Wrex nodded over the video connection. “I'll wire you some credits to get him here. Sounds like you're going broke, Shepard. That's a first.”

Shepard rolled her eyes. “Any credits not already allotted to employee accounts are staying firmly in the fuel one. Any personal credits I have that _weren't_ spent paying bonuses and setting up trial studies into Garrus's mother's disease are for fuel and food. This ship is literally a third bigger than the _SR1_ , Wrex. More ship, more fuel.”  
  
“Yeah, well, it all sounds rougher than gas money. Where's the incoming pay, huh?”  
  
“Fine, I'm unemployed now, technically, and my ass is on loan with a friend on Omega for doing ship repairs. How'd you know?”

“Have my ways.”

“Who said what?”

The big red reptilian eyes lit up with humor. Wrex adjusted in his seat in front of the camera. “Maybe a certain pyjack on your ship worries about you and told me. Or maybe he's just a gossiping turd.”

“Joker,” Shepard grumbled with a glare to the comm speaker above her. “Snoopy brat.”

Wrex laughed. “Ahh. Like old times.”

“You know, at this point, I kinda miss those days. And then I think about Sovereign and Saren, and then I kinda don't.”

“True. You didn't smell like _turian_ back then, either.”

She sat back in her chair and shrugged, but a quiet, more peaceful smile was over her lips. “Hey. I _almost_ did.”

Her old friend, the mercenary who never blinked in the face of danger or confrontation or even her own wrath sometimes, grew serious for _just_ a moment when he nodded in turn. They shared a look of understanding, an awareness of how life can fuck up at any second. Of how many close calls they'd had on the Saren run alone. And that shared experience made Shepard part her lips and softly say, “I think we're going to help Liara go after the Shadow Broker. Her friend who helped rescue my...remains...is still being held somewhere.”

Wrex exhaled, the sound almost a snicker. “The Shadow Broker. Damn, Shepard.”

“Yeah. I know. Honestly, it's about time someone did.”

“It's crazy, but that's what I like about you. Other people squabble like weak clans over nothing, and you go for the unthinkable. Saren, this Collector crap, even searching for Reapers. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were one of _our_ females.”

“You know, I've wondered the same once or twice. Maybe a shared gene in my pool.”

“Heh, heh.”

“I'm doing a drop off for someone tomorrow with a meet. After that I'll get us to Illium. I'll try to have Grunt on a ship to you within the week. Not sure how long it'll take once he's bound for Tuchanka.”

“Doesn't matter. S'long as he gets here and is prepared to work for his name.”

“He's good with challenges. Likes to prove himself,” Shepard admitted with a smile. “He's also a brat sometimes. A show off.”

Wrex shrugged on her screen. “Meh. What good krogan isn't.”

“Fair. Just give him a break when he gets overeager...but be firm, anyway.”

“Shepard, I can deal with a runt just fine.”

“Yeah, but he's been _my runt_ for a while now. Oblige me, will ya?”

“Yeah, yeah, if it shuts you up.”

“Good,” she softly said. Her green eyes searched the slitted red ones on the screen quietly. “Take care of him, Wrex. He's not just another 'grunt' to me.”

The old krogan chuckled. “I know, Shepard. None of us are.”

  


 

\----------------------------

   


 

“Okay, listen up,” Shepard began the next morning, feeling eerie as she stood once more in the mess surrounded by her crew and team members watching her curiously. “Overlord has been investigated. The issue is closed...and so is my tie with Cerberus and the Illusive Man.”

Human heads swiveled to look at one another, uneasy and concerned.  
  
Shepard plowed on, regardless. “Now, I know you all want to know what's next. If there _is_ a next. I've got a next, but it doesn't need everyone in this room, and not everyone in here _needs_ to deal with it, either. So again I put it to _you_ to vote if you will stay or not to deal with this. If you do, I will find pay, I promise. If you do not, I will find you a way home. Understood?”

Heads nodded all around. Worried turian blues hovered behind the mixture of faces as Garrus stood at the back, arms crossed, mandibles already slightly tight. Just last night Shepard had mentioned the situation in further detail with Garrus privately in bed, and of course he'd still been gung-ho to help their friend. What he _had_ been absolutely wary of, understandably so, was being on the Shadow Broker's shit list right after everything they'd just been through.

She knew he wanted a break. Needed one.

And after _this_ side trip, they were fucking _taking_ it. Even if they had to by force.

“Okay,” Shepard sighed and relaxed her hands at her hips. “A friend of mine—someone who saved my _life—_ is in trouble trying to save another person who had helped her rescue _me_ initially. All of this has happened at the hands of someone very dangerous—the Shadow Broker, himself.”

Joker cursed softly as eyeballs rounded around him among the Cerberus crew.

Shepard nodded calmly. “I aim to help her, and I don't know what that means yet. Possibly intel, possibly back up, possibly far more. But it's looking like we're going up against the literal Shadow Broker. All I'm looking for is enough hands to keep the ship moving and maybe a squad mate or two at my back or for security.

“I _get_ if you'd rather not. Really, really, I do. Your health, your mental health, your damn _safety_ are more important, and you don't have to tell me so. I absolutely agree with you. So think about it. You've got tonight and tomorrow. We're continuing the path to Illium after we finish getting David on his way today. All transports to wherever home is for you will go through Illium's Nos Astra port. Keep that in mind as you plan.”

No one spoke. No one in the mess seemed sure what to say.

At least in the case of Chakwas and Miranda, Shepard knew why. They were already on board, no matter what. Jacob's head was shaking back and forth, his dark eyes on the floor. Tali's hand hadn't strayed from her helmet's chin in her worry. Garrus had barely blinked despite his approval settling now in his tired gaze. Jack looked annoyed. Legion seemed to be merely processing.

And as Shepard broke up the meeting, Grunt heavily stepped to her side, his slit pupils roaming her tightly. “Shepard—”  
  
“—I know. It's okay, bud. We're arranging transport with Wrex to get you back.”

Grunt huffed. He glanced around once at the people talking quietly leaving the room, and then he grumbled lowly, “The Shadow Broker. Seems like a strong enemy.”

“I can deal with him just fine. We've tangled a few times before. It's been coming.”

“Maybe. Or maybe you'll be weak without a krogan to back you up.”

“Grunt,” Shepard murmured, green eyes smiling at his obvious agitation. “I'll be fine. I'll tell you all about it when I'm done, how's that? See what enemies you might be dealing with.”

“Heh. Training first. S'what I was told. After that, clan business. And that is need-to-know, so....”

“Even so, you let me know when your ass is in trouble,” Shepard demanded and lightly love tapped his armor with her knuckles. “That's an order, Grunt. Got me? I'll fly to Tuchanka and kick your ass after I rescue it.”

“Heh, heh. You're too broke.”

“If you don't think I wouldn't do it anyway and scrounge Tuchanka for parts to sell for gas in trade, you haven't learned much about me. I make a damn point, and I stick to it.”

Grunt rumbled at her, a deep laughing sound Shepard knew she was going to miss. He waved her off and left her be, his big feet carrying him back to the elevator.

Shepard made her way into the medbay, smiling when she saw David sitting up on the bed he'd been using. He was dressed in a Cerberus uniform, all they'd had on the ship for him to possibly wear, but over his white, black, and yellow shirt was something odd fitting. Loose and deep around his neck.

She recognized it instantly. After all, it landed on her floor often enough at night.

Her smile softened, and she came closer, greeting David as he looked up at her. She glanced over him, relieved that Dr. Chakwas had yet again worked miracles on board the _Normandy_. David was still a little patched up, a bit stiff and definitely reserved, but he wasn't pallid anymore. His skin looked healthier, his body more hydrated, his eyes rested and no longer horribly reddened. Marks around his head had seen rounds of medi-gel to rapidly heal, leaving just a few hints of scars behind.

“My mom's ship is gonna dock soon. Got notice about a half an hour ago. Feel okay?” Shepard asked him, reciprocating his little courteous nod. “I know this is...a lot.”

David's eyes strayed to Chakwas as she passed by calmly, and he swallowed. “Yes.”

“Yes, you're okay? Or yes, it's a lot to deal with? Or both?”

“...both?”

“Okay. I promise it'll be safe there, David. I'll read any updates you want to send me. Just know I get super busy doing...things...in the galaxy.”

“The Reapers,” David commented, the word sounding terrifying in his tone. At her stunned look, he continued, head bowing slightly, “I...remember. He...spoke of them.”

“Dr. Archer. Your brother.”

“...no.”

“Then who?”

“The man you don't like with Cerberus. The one who smokes. He uses holographs.”

Shepard rubbed her eyes with her palms. “Heard him once around your brother, huh.”

“Yes. He speaks strangely.”

“How so?”

“He says words, but they...he sounds....”

“Like he's speaking two meanings at once? Yeah. He does that. Intimidation.”

David sat up straighter. “Ah. I...see.”

Joker's voice interjected over the comm in the room quickly with a rushed, “Hey, Commander, your mom's ah—hi, Admiral.”

“Hello, Officer Moreau,” Hannah Shepard replied over the speaker, sounding absolutely amused. “Athena, I'm on board.”

Shepard grinned at the ceiling when the sound cut off and winked at David. “That's my mom. Ready to meet her?”

David slowly nodded, still not blinking much as he shifted to stare at the door.

Shepard heard the elevator settle, and she turned, relieved to see her mother stride through the medbay door. A single guard from her ship walked with her for rules' sake, and Shepard watched her mom order the man to stand outside the room despite his grunt about the Cerberus ship not being safe.

“It isn't a Cerberus ship. Never was. It's a Shepard-run ship. Someone else just paid for it,” Hannah retorted as the door closed. Her blue eyes warmed as she gave a knowing salute in her admiral uniform, a salute Shepard returned. “Hey, sweetie.”

“Hey, Mom.”

“Now hug me.”

Shepard exhaled the second her mother's arms were around her, tight and strong, safe and grounding more than anything in the galaxy next to Garrus's own hug.

“I read your reports. I know it got hairy. But you did the right thing. You know that.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean it. Cutting ties with that bastard was necessary. Just watch yourself now.”

“I know.” Shepard let go and breathed out, sighing to center again. She gestured to David. “Mom, this is David Archer. David, this is my mom, Admiral Hannah Shepard.”

“You can call me Hannah,” her mother said and came forward closer to meet David. She stuck her hand out gently. “Hand shake okay? If it's not, just say so.”

At first David didn't speak. Just eyed the extended hand with conflicted uncertainty.

“Air-fives might work better,” Shepard suggested, eyes warm. “David's very touch sensitive, Mom.”

David looked between mother and daughter, puzzled, and Shepard raised her palm up and air-fived her mother's free hand held nearby. After a moment he held his own up and did the same, looking more comfortable as Hannah withdrew her offered shake and smiled.

“So, David, what do you know about Grissom Academy?” Hannah asked.

When David started giving a practical historical lesson about the school's founder, Shepard paused him with a soft interruption and looked to EDI's monitor. “EDI.”

“Yes? He asked.”

“So you told him everything about the school. Literally everything.”

EDI's blue form flickered. “Yes?”

“Okay,” Shepard snickered. “Continue, David. But Mom didn't mean history. She means what you might get up to there.”

David nodded, taking no offense. “Training. Grissom Academy is a school for biotically gifted students, but there is...much tech behind biotic training, too. Other education. Math. I am...good with math.”

“And it's a safe social space. You can be around people if you want and not be around 'em when you need time for you,” Hannah explained, stance relaxed. “There's going to be a guide assigned to you for the first while to get you comfortable as well as a teaching counselor to set you up with a schedule and goals for yourself—educational, personal, you name it. Any other help you want. You're not going into this alone, David, and you will be protected at this school.”

David seemed to withdraw slightly, perhaps overwhelmed. Shepard couldn't blame him. She wasn't the one going, yet it felt too much to her, too. For David, someone isolated with his brother and geth for the past months? It could be overkill. And the trust required after what he'd _just_ endured...it was going to be a challenge.

She settled her hip against the edge of his bed. “Go your pace, okay? You don't have to do school work right away. You don't have to do much but adjust to a new space and routine at first. Take some time for you, David, and mingle at your pace.”  
  
“Are there...others?”

Hannah frowned slightly. “Others?”

David stared Shepard down until she blinked and tapped her right boot's heel to her left shin, speaking the words for him. “Other autistic students.”

“Ah,” Hannah replied, smiling to David again. “There are students at Grissom from _many_ backgrounds, David.”

He relaxed at that, his dark eyes curious.

Shepard touched her mother's elbow. “Give us a minute, and you can both get on your way.”

“All right,” her mom said. Hannah stopped by the door, though, and looked back over her shoulder. “Don't think you've gotten out of your lecture just because I'm on a clock. Check your messages. _The Shadow Broker_ , Athena.”

Shepard winced humorously enough that even David's lips twitched into an almost smile. “It's for Liara, Mom.”

“Mm _hm_. Just be safe. First Saren, then the Omega-4, and now all of this?”

“Garrus is demanding a vacation soon. Don't worry.”

“Then take one. _Both_ of you,” Hannah's blue eyes twinkled just as the door shut, leaving Shepard and David alone once more.

He stretched a leg down carefully, still quite obviously tender with his movements. Shepard held out a hand, and with his extended arm in silent permission, helped David down to his feet. She gave the loose front of the sweater a kind tug, and she said, “Like it?”

“It isn't mine. It is your partner's. The turian, Garrus.”

“I know. Don't tell him, but it looks better on you. I think it was getting too small for him.”

David didn't laugh, but he sighed, and there was a smile almost hidden from Shepard's view as she helped him prepare, Dr. Chakwas already back in the room to go through departure health checklists.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Prologue to get started. Might take a smaller break before posting a handful of first chapters together instead of just the next one. Have to see. This is a worthwhile, but heavy endeavor. Lol.
> 
> Progression of 2.5 is as follows DLC-wise without relationship spoilers: Overlord, Shadow Broker, and Arrival. No Firewalker. Major romance arc development and multi-character friendship/family growth included. DLC consequences canonical with non-canonical set up for the beginning of third game to better explain her status starting in it and canon separations of team members. We're going for some interesting angles here, and I hope you like them all the way to the end of Vol 3. Stay tuned for updates on 2.5. Thank you for reading along.]


End file.
